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Digitized by the Internet Archive 
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https://archive.org/details/dynamicpsychologOOmoor 


DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 


NIHIL OBSTAT 
J. BRUNEAU, Censor deputatus, Baltimore 


NIHIL OBSTAT 
D. JUSTINUS McCANN, Censor Congr., Angliae O.S.B. 


IMPRIMI POTEST 
OSWALDUS SMITH, Abbas Preses., die 16 Jun., 1924 


IMPRIMATUR 
% MICHAEL J. CURLEY, Archiep., Baltimore 


DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 


AN INTRODUCTION TO MODERN 
PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORY 
AND PRACTICE 


BY 
DOM THOMAS VERNER ‘MOORE, Pu.D., M.D. 


MONK OF THE ORDER OF ST. BENEDICT 
' PROFESSOR OF PSYCHOLOGY, CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA 
DIRECTOR OF THE CLINIC FOR MENTAL AND NERVOUS DISEASES 
PROVIDENCE HOSPITAL, WASHINGTON, D. C. 





PHILADELPHIA, LONDON, CHICAGO 
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY 


COPYRIGHT, 1924, BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY 


PRINTED BY 7. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY 
AT THE WASHINGTON SQUARE PRESS 
PHILADELPHIA, U. Se As 


PREFACE 


THE present work is an attempt to present the essentials of a 
course in Psychology that will give the student: 

(a) An insight into the modern trends of Psychology; (b) a 
foundation for a practical understanding of his own inner life 
that will be of assistance to him in the solution of the mental 
difficulties that continually arise in the course of an ordinary 
existence, and (c) an introduction to the clinical problems of 
Psychology that will open the way to an appreciation of border- 
line mental cases and a technique for handling them, should a 
medical training lead him further into this field. 

While the aim of this work is to give a practical introduction 
to Psychology, the points of contact between Psychology and 
Philosophy have not been ignored. 

The now broad field of mental tests has not been entered 
because this has become a special division of Psychology, and 
a practical treatment of the subject would demand a sepa- 
rate volume. 

The work is based upon years of studying and teaching Psy- 
chology and the practical experience of handling patients as 
Director of the Clinic for Mental and Nervous Diseases at the 
Providence Hospital, Washington, D. C., and during the war as 
Captain and Major in the Medical Corps of the United States 
Army in this country and in France. Experimental Psychology 
and Human Pathology have been drawn upon to clear up certain 
theoretical points and to present the most important evidence 
on the theoretical problems discussed. 

A glossary of technical terms has been added for the con- 
venience of the general reader. 

It is to be hoped that the work will be of real service, not only 
to those who study Psychology as a part of a liberal education, 

Vv 


vi PREFACE 


but also to spiritual advisors, professional psychologists, social 
workers, and physicians in their daily work. 

Since the name Dynamic Psychology was previously used by 
Professor Woodworth, of Columbia, as the title of one of his 
publications, I wrote him before publishing this work, and he 
graciously welcomed another book bearing the same title as his 
earlier volume. 

The chapter on the Psychotaxes and the Parataxes appeared 
in the Psychoanalytic Review in April, 1921, along with a dis- 
cussion, omitted in the text, of the concept of the Parataxis as 
a specific medical diagnosis applicable to certain borderline ¢ases. 
The Editor, Doctor White, has kindly given permission to make 
use of the material in this volume. The chapter on the Sen- 
gations Involved in Voluntary Movements and that on the 
Pathology of Voluntary Action were recently. published in the 
International Clinics with the understanding that they were about 
to be published in this volume. 

My thanks are due to Monsignor Pace and Doctor Kerby, 
of the Catholic University, for reading the manuscript, and to 
my assistants Mr. John W. Rauth, for attending to the illustra- 
tions for me during my absence from the country, and Mr. T. G. 
Foran for reading the proof. I am also indebted to Dom Aidan 
Baldwin for assistance in the proofreading. 

THOMAS VERNER Moore. 
St. Benedict’s Abbey, 


Fort Augustus, Scotland. 
March 21, 1924. 


CONTENTS 


PART I 
THE ANALYSIS OF MIND 


CHAPTER PAGE 
deme OS CONCEP ELON, PSYCHOLOGYO ic sec uislel ho eclee een cane 3 
RI PERINSOLOUBN HSS Hes tie cule once oie teen eo ea mle Pale ale dla eee binary e 13 
Pa en Ye CONSCIOUS YC ote iciets as guna siete aiireis eld Mtb ie aialk fo alee s wale 17 
LV OREAMS ANID THE: LUNCONSCIOURU As eae’ oko ate.e pace ose inl eiecals 30 
V. Mertuops oF INVESTIGATING THE UNCONSCIOUS.........e0ee. 37 
VI. THe CLASSIFICATION OF MENTAL PROCESSES .........e00000. 42 
PART II 
STIMULUS AND RESPONSE AND HUMAN BEHAVIOR 
De LEER UACTION case Da elon ole caine no Sick aber nites clvieleie ld Grol le lets 55 
II. Reriex AcTiIoN AND REACTION-TIME EXPERIMENTS.........6- i3 
PELPEREL ROPIOMSG TNs Fees a Rise ea Teta cetera Baie a ahcta e's oe biateras ates 79 
PART III 
HUMAN EMOTIONAL LIFE 
Per lHs APrrective MENTAL OPATES! | occ cule dees s cus corde eels 101 
II. Tue Expression OF THE EMOTIONS........ AA PBL AU ane Rona A 116 
III. Summary or THE THEORY OF THE AFFECTIVE MentTaL Srates 132 
PART IV 


THE DRIVING FORCES OF HUMAN NATURE AND 
THEIR ADJUSTMENT 


TNGTINCENANDEIMPULSE Lt. iia a enue aes clean osha 137 
LR Tet ee me meer Sea Tene Wem ere Sl iia Aa AN Me Ch auie ige NC gM eee 150 
SLELIERCONELICT occa ce staeecn oy ete MSN shee of Hoek Sle le Lio lo whether ey eens 160 
Pe VOHOTAKES “AND MEARATAXEHS T0214 a050\4 4/o ble diet te ote end eo Sie este 182 
LHNPRARATAXISNOP DEPRESSION cc bk ae CL Ge aloes e bia ated autelnte 189 
MiP EIGA RATA LIS(OR ANXIETY: Doula aiattet ciate Wnt miae teu oa 198 
THE) UARATAXBS OF? LERENAB \ 4 wiles delslaleiand te hc ole Mbeelelas ou wiene ath 211 
ACOMEMNSATION . Sica ita cathe og reine gate el cca ere os el giaeie to's AIDE PERT ANTE 235 
DU UIMATION Wale lave ae Ue lasuk Aa ae Citta ete aa eae arolacehe @haraueiataneotea ats 241 
PART V 
PSYCHOANALYSIS AND PSYCHOTHERAPY 
LOVES oP an 0S GN UPa a SAS Seer LA ae EP RS a Aas ARS MUA NTI DOOD ea ARS 253 
TINGE Tree ati a died FNRI AU a Mia thas salelarelepeaEme le couriers 266 
ADE Mier eret ener ate ert tate cine Aetna elute weetela ws state atetnnaene a ie Sleale 279 
Tue PsycHOPATHOLOGY AND PsycHOTHERAPY OF ADOLF Mryrer 284 
THe TECHNIQUE OF PSYCHOTHERAPY...... eis Coataie s eetghend oe iertes 294 


Vii 


Vil 


CHAPTER 


if. 
If. 
III. 
IV. 
vs 
VI. 
VII. 


CONTENTS 


PART VI 
VOLITIONAL CONTROL 


VouLuntarRy ACTION AND THE ACT OF WILL........cccceccccs 3il 
VoLUNTARY MovEMENT AND THE THEORY OF IpDEOoMoTOR ACTION 321 
VOLUNTARY MOVEMENT AND THE THEORY OF CONCEPTUAL CONTROL 331 


Kinetic UNITS IN THE SERVICE OF VOLUNTARY ACTION....... 343 
THE SENSATIONS INVOLVED IN VOLUNTARY MOVEMENTS....... 349 
THe PATHOLOGY OF VOLUNTARY ACTION........ccececccsceee 368 
FREmpOM OF THE WILD. i's. sce c kc erhe sel eee ea ee 392 
CONCLUSION 
DEES OUD ois orci ca bie bie pee te aoe SCRE eu Sala aang at ane 402 
GLOSSARY OF, TECHNICAL TERMS. bic...) dice lei e's 0 ce 412 
SuBsEcr INDEX. ceils oe oe eee ee AU ne 429 


PART I 
THE ANALYSIS OF MIND 













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DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 


CHAPTER I 


THE CONCEPT OF PSYCHOLOGY 


THERE is no definition of psychology at the present day that 
meets with the approval of all students of the science. This 
lack of unity in the modern concept of psychology is due to 
several factors. 

1. The close relation of psychology to philosophy, from which 
it has budded off as an independent study. 

Metaphysical concepts, one might even say prejudices, are 
more potent factors in the minds of all men, even scientists, 
than many would be willing to admit. Different metaphysical 
attitudes really influence the ideas of the psychologists as to 
the nature of psychology. 

2. Modern psychology is a relatively young science and only 
in its maturity does a science really erystallize its definition. 

3. Psychology is a rapidly growing science splitting up into 
various subforms, begetting a numerous progeny so that it is 
hard to decide among its various heirs which is the rightful 
successor to the name. 

This being the case, it is fairer to the student to let him 
know what psychology has been in the past and from the his- 
torical facts deduce the concept of what should be regarded as 
truly expressing the nature of psychology. 

We are confronted with a difficulty at the outset. The name, 
psychology, is a comparatively recent invention. It is by no 
means as old as the science itself and was utterly unknown 
when psychological problems were first discussed in the days of 
the Greek Sophists. The name, therefore, does not necessarily 
define for us the science. Were we to take the roots of the word 
psychology which comes to us from the reformer Melanchthon,' 

*™Melanchthon, Philip, a German Reformer, 1497-1560, Murray’s New 
English Dictionary, p. 314, Vol. VI, 1904. 

3 


4 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND 


psychology would mean the science of the soul: Aéyos, a root 
taken, nowadays, to indicate science and ¢vz7, soul. 

This, however, was not the original concept of psychology. 
If we go back to the first psychological treatise or group of 
psychological treatises, we find them in the De Anima and Parva 
Naturalia of Aristotle. If we look into Aristotle’s treatise, De 
Anima, we shall see that it really is an attempt to analyze the 
facts of our mental life. If, however, we wished to give a 
modern name to the various works grouped together as 
Aristotle’s psychology, this name would be biology rather than 
psychology, for the discipline that they treat of is said to be 
the science of life in all its manifestations. Life, according to 
him, is that which is capable of at least nutrition, growth and 
decay. Besides these fundamental essentials of life, which are 
found even in plant organisms, there is the fuller life of sensa- 
tion manifested in animals and of the higher thought processes 
manifested in man. In the special treatise on ‘‘ The Soul ’’ 
Aristotle pays attention mainly to the analysis of sensation and 
the thought processes of human intellectual life. Bound up with 
his treatise on the soul were several minor treatises that were 
termed Parva Naturalia. The very titles alone indicate a 
body of knowledge which extends beyond the metaphysical dis- 
cussion of the nature of the soul, its freedom, immortality, 
and other such problems that philosophy now claims as its own. 


The titles of the Parva Naturalia were as follows: 
Concerning Sensation and That Which Is Sensed ; 
Concerning Memory and Forgetting; 

Concerning Sleep and Awakening ; 

Concerning Dreams; 

Concerning the Interpretation of Dreams; 
Concerning a Long Life and a Short Life; 
Concerning Youth and Old Age; 

Concerning Life and Death; 

Concerning Respiration. 


When we read these titles we see that the first great 
psychologist made an attempt, very bold for the fourth century 


THE CONCEPT OF PSYCHOLOGY 5 


B.C., to delve into what we now term physiological psychology 
and even into problems which the most modern of psychological 
disciplines, psychoanalysis, has claimed as its own. 

Throughout the Middle Ages several treatises were written 
which adopted as their title the De Anima used first by Aristotle. 
These treatises, however, were written from the metaphysical 
point of view. 

The name psychology, as we have seen, was used by 
Melanchthon in the sixteenth century. A hundred years later, 
Christian Wolff (1679-1754) employed the term rational and 
empirical psychology. This terminology of Wolff has continued 
down to the present day with, however, a modification in the 
meaning of the terms. According to Wolff, there are two methods 
of studying the soul—the method of reason and the method of 
experience. Rational psychology investigates the soul by 
reason; empirical psychology investigates it by experience. 
From this point of view rational and empirical psychology cover 
the same field but by a different method. It was soon seen that 
reason could investigate some problems and empirical research 
others. It is not possible to study all the problems of psychology. 
by the same method. The distinction, therefore, between rational 
and empirical psychology became one both of field and of 
method, rational psychology undertaking to study the metaphy- 
sical problems, the nature and origin of the soul, and empirical 
psychology confining itself to the phenomena of the mind. There 
was but little progress made in this empirical investigation until 
physies and physiology had developed methods of study which 
eould be applied to the sensory life of man. When this 
development was attained, physiologists began to investigate 
the relation between the stimulus and the sensation which it 
produces. This was in the first half of the nineteenth century. 
The original investigators were physiologists. 

Empirical psychology, as a real scientific discipline, had its 
birth in physiology and not in the philosophy of Christian 
Wolff. A new science was begotten which was first termed 
psychophysies and later, physiological psychology, and then, 
experimental psychology, and, occasionally, empirical psychology. 


6 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND 


The first work which we may look upon as a treatise in 
extenso of the new science was Gustav Theodor Fechner’s 
Elements of Psychophysics, the first volume of which appeared in 
1859, the second in 1860. He thus defines psychophysics: ‘* An 
exact science of the functional relations of dependence between 
body and mind or, more generally, between the bodily and mental 
or the physical and psychical world.”’ (P. 8.) 

The term ‘‘ soul ’’ Fechner understood in a very broad sense. 
In fact, it embraced everything apprehended by inner experi- 
ence or that could be deduced from inner experience. By the 
term ‘‘ body ’’ he understood everything that could be perceived 
by outer experience, that is, by the senses, or could be inferred 
from these perceptions. 

In 1874 two important works on psychology appeared—one 
was that of Brentano, Psychology from the Empirical Stand- 
point. He gave a definition of psychology, which became very 
popular and until recent days was the commonly accepted 
definition of psychology, namely, psychology is the science of 
psychic phenomena, that is, of conscious processes. He 
attempted to show that this definition meant neither more nor 
less than, psychology is the science of the soul. He adopted this 
definition because it implied no metaphysical theory whereas 
the old definition did. 

The second great work on empirical psychology which 
appeared in 1874 was destined to go through six editions and 
to become the classic work on psychology and has been super- 
seded by no other until the present day. This was Wundt’s 
Outlines of Physiological Psychology. In his first edition 
he thus contrasted physiology and psychology: ‘‘ Physiology 
supplies us with information concerning those vital phenomena 
which may be perceived by the outer sense. In psychology, 
however, man beholds himself from within and tries to explain 
the interrelation of those phenomena which introspection pre- 


sents to his view.’’ ? 


*Grundziige der physiologischen Psychologie, Leipzig, 1874, first edi- 
tion, p. 1. 


‘THE CONCEPT OF PSYCHOLOGY vi 


A number of psychologists adopted the definition of Brentano, 
so that psychology was usually defined as the science of con- 
scious processes or the science of the facts of the phenomena of 
self or the science of consciousness. 

In the meantime, experimentalists were attempting not only 
to investigate the mental life of man but also to throw some 
light upon the much discussed problem of animal intelligence. 
There is, however, this difficulty about the investigation of animal 
psychology. One ean give the animal no verbal instructions; 
and when one is through with the experiment, one can ask the 
animal no questions. It is, therefore, necessary to make use of 
purely objective methods, that is to say, to put the animal in 
various situations and watch its behavior. One puts a dog in a 
box, for example, that can be opened by a latch and watches how 
it gets out and measures the time it takes to liberate itself in 
successive trials, and thus investigates the time curve in the 
animal’s process of learning. 

This objective method of procedure threw a great deal of 
light on the problem of animal behavior and even gave some 
insight into the probable nature of animal intelligence as com- 
pared with human nature. Those who made use of the method 
were so thrilled with their success that they wished to apply 
the same method to the study of the human mind. This they pro- 
ceeded to do, and this they had every right to do and might hope 
to obtain and did obtain a number of very interesting results. 

Unfortunately, the human mind has a monistie tendency to 
extreme simplification, which manifests itself under various dis- 
guises. If a principle finds valuable application anywhere, some 
wish to extend it so as to explain everything, and so animal 
psychologists were not satisfied with applying objective methods 
to human psychology but commenced to maintain that no other 
methods whatever were applicable to the mind of man. One must 
treat a human being as one would an animal. One must ask 
the subject in the psychological laboratory no questions at all. 
One must never demand any introspection. One must confine 
oneself to the objective method. Thus, Watson defines psychology 
as ‘‘ a purely objective branch of natural science.’’ Its theoreti- 


alt THE ANALYSIS OF MIND 


eal goal is the prediction and control of behavior. Introspection 
forms no essential part of its methods, nor is the scientific value 
of the data dependent upon the readiness with which they lend 
themselves to interpretation in terms of consciousness.® 

After the denial of the value of an appeal to consciousness 
in the study of psychology, extremists went on to maintain that 
there is no such thing as consciousness. This extreme attitude 
seems even to have been adopted by James in his later days. 
‘‘ For twenty years past,’’ he says, ‘‘ I have mistrusted con- 
sciousness as an entity; for seven or eight years past I have sug- 
gested its non-existence to my students... It seems to me that 
the hour is ripe for it to be openly and universally discarded.’’ 4 

This school which would define psychology as the science 
of behavior is known as Behaviorism, and its adherents as 
Behaviorists. : 

It is difficult for one to understand this denial of consciousness 
without an insight into Behaviorism as an outgrowth from animal 
psychology. With this foundation, however, and keeping in 
mind the natural tendency of some personalities to all embracing 
monistic concepts and sweeping denials and affirmations, and 
not forgetting either the delight of the radicals to shock the 
sensibilities of the conservatives, and the craving of every man 
to bring forward something new and startling, we may under- 
stand the ‘‘ psychology ’’ of the Behaviorists though we may have 
serious misgivings as to the solidity of its logical foundations. 

The Behaviorist certainly has every right to investigate 
behavior to the exclusion of consciousness, if he will. When, 
however, he maintains that psychology is solely the science of 
external behavior and not an analysis of inner experience, he has 
no historical foundation for thus limiting the term ‘‘ psychology.”’ 
It may be difficult to study our inner mental life, but it is un- 
doubtedly a field of investigation and a field of investigation 
which has long been termed by the name of psychology. This 
inner mental life is of interest to many investigators, and they 

* Behavior: An Introduction to Comparative Psychology, by John B. 
Watson, New York, 1914, p. 1. 

“Quoted by Frost, Psychological Review, 1914, XXI, p. 204. 


THE CONCEPT OF PSYCHOLOGY 9 


have every right historically to term this science of our inner 
mental life psychology. It is impossible to investigate every- 
thing in our mental life by objective methods for this inner 
experience is far richer than its manifestations by actions or 
reactions that can be the objects of an external observer’s 
experience. 

Nor has Behaviorism been able to attain its goal and predict 
and control human behavior. A pure Behaviorist would have 
little place in a psychological clinic or the schoolroom or the 
Juvenile Court, ete. Whenever one wishes to understand any 
of the real problems of mental conflict, or penetrate into the real 
eauses of the difficulties of life, one has to obtain introspections 
from the patient in trouble. His reactions alone will not give 
the insight into his personality that is necessary in order to give 
him the help he needs. Psychology should enable us to solve the 
difficulties of the human race as well as to investigate the curve 
of learning in white rats, dogs, cats or human organisms. 

In recent times there has been a return to the older concept 
of psychology as the science of the soul. This tendency is found 
in Miss Calkins’ definition of psychology as the science of the 
self. To conceive of psychology as the science of individual 
beings has certain advantages over the conception of psychology 
as the science of conscious processes. When we study psychology 
we really seek an insight into the mind and mental life of the 
individual. We hope for a science which will enable us to 
interpret not human behavior in general, but the particular 
behavior of some individual whom we are trying to influence. We 
may be interested in psychological theory and in the nature of 
conscious processes as such, but psychological interest does not 
terminate with pulling the mind to pieces. No analysis is ever 
satisfactory as a final result. We wish to try to put things 
together—to synthesize. We study, therefore, in psychology 
not isolated states of consciousness alone but the mental mechan- 
isms of behavior which are manifested by individual human 
beings. Psychology, therefore, in the sense of human psychology, 
may be defined as the science of the human personality. It is not 
necessary in a definition of this kind to assume any theory of 

Q 


10 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND 


human personality but only that there are personalities, indi- 
vidual human beings who may be studied from the point of 
view of their mental life and the mechanisms of their behavior. © 
To say that psychology is the science of the soul assumes at the 
outset a metaphysical theory. It is better to start on common 
ground. Psychology is not the science of the brain. It is not 
physiology, the science of the functions of the organs of the body. 
It is not biology, the science of life in general, as Aristotle defines 
it. Psychology is merely the science of human beings developed 
by an analysis of their mental life by experiments, by observations, 
by everything that will enable us to obtain insight into the 
minds of men—how they know, how they think, how they reason, 
how they feel, how they react in the difficulties of life. 


RELATION OF PSYCHOLOGY TO OTHER SCIENCES 


The question is often raised, is psychology a natural science? 
Before answering this question we may ask ourselves, in the first 
place, is psychology a science at all? What, we may ask, is a 
science? A science is a branch of knowledge which seeks an 
explanation of a correlated group of phenomena or events. Does 
psychology seek an explanation of a definite field of factual ex- 
perience? It most certainly does. The facts of experience which 
are studied in psychology are the facts of our mental life. The task 
of psychology is not merely to describe these phenomena but to ex- 
plain them. In this sense, therefore, psychology is a science. 

Now we may ask the further question, is psychology a natu- 
ral science? A natural science may be looked upon as one whose 
explanations are in terms of nature, that is to say, physical 
motion. The explanations of a natural science must be given 
according to this concept in terms of matter and energy. We 
may say rather in terms of energy than of matter, for in most 
of the explanations of natural science matter does not enter into 
the question, but only the amount of energy before and after a 
given event. Natural sciences, so far as their ultimate explana- 
tions are concerned, have to do with the manifestations and trans- 
formations of energy. Energy is conceived of as the cause of 
motion, whether of atoms or of masses. Anything that sets in 


THE CONCEPT OF PSYCHOLOGY 11 


motion a part of matter, whether an atom or a planet, is energy. 
Can mental phenomena be conceived of in terms of the motion of 
atoms or of masses? If we limit ourselves to such explanations 
as this, we can hardly get beyond physics. We can measure 
stimuli, we can correlate stimuli with sensations, and when we 
have done all this we have scarcely trodden upon the field of 
psychology at all. Psychological explanations are really on a very 
different basis from physiological. One might learn all about 
the energy transformations going on in the human body, meas- 
ure the quantity of food taken and the amount of work done by 
a human being, and yet one would not understand the true motives 
of his behavior. If a man appeared to be paralyzed and one 
understood that the paralysis was not due to any actual injury 
to the nervous system but to a state of mind, for example, to a 
desire to get compensation from a railroad company because 
of the fact that he was in an accident in which he was not really 
hurt—if one knew all this about a man one would understand his 
behavior far better than through any insight given by profound 
chemical studies which might be made of the balance between 
the energy taken in his food and the energy manifested in his 
work. Physiological explanations do not help us to understand 
purely mental facts. It is not likely that they ever will, nor will 
the principles of physiology enable us, as a general rule, to modify 
the behavior of criminals or of a psychoneurotic or of an unruly 
child, ete. This does not mean that physiology may be dispensed 
with in the study of human behavior. It merely points out that 
human behavior is not completely explained or understood by 
an appeal to principles which are strictly those of natural science. 
Psychology, therefore, is not in the strict sense of the word a 
natural science. We shall see as we go on that this does not pre- 
vent it from being an experimental science or an empirical sci- 
ence. It has many points of contact with the natural sciences. It 
relies upon physics for information about the stimuli which are 
capable of producing sensation. Without a knowledge of physics 
we could not understand how we see, hear, touch, taste, smell, ete. 
Physics, however, carries us only so far. It leaves us at the 


12 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND 


threshold of the bodily organism in which we live. When a 
stimulus impinges upon one of our sense organs many things 
happen in that sense organ before we become conscious of some- 
thing in the outside world. Physiology has investigated the 
sense organs, the nerves, the brain through which we receive 
information about the outside world. As psychologists there- 
fore, we wish to learn as much as possible about the way in which 
we know. Physiology is a very important aid to psychology. 
One who would become a psychologist cannot get along without 
a good knowledge of the principles of physiology. 


CHAPTER II 
CONSCIOUSNESS 


PSYCHOLOGY, as we have defined it, is the science of the human 
personality. What characterizes the human personality most 
specifically is its mode of conscious behavior. It is perhaps on 
this account that some psychologists have chosen as their defini- 
tion: Psychology is the science of conscious processes. 

Though the mind cannot satisfy itself with the study of these 
isolated processes, nevertheless it is necessary for us to analyze 
consciousness before we can attempt to obtain that synthetic 
knowledge which gives us an insight into the workings of any 
individual mind. It is necessary, furthermore, to have names to 
designate the phenomena we observe. It is necessary to apply 
those names in a scientific manner, always univocally designating 
the same fact of observation. Hence, it is necessary, even in 
dynamic psychology, to know something about the elements of 
our mental life. 

We shall prelude this analysis of our mental life by asking 
ourselves, first, what, after all, is consciousness itself? This is 
particularly useful inasmuch as some psychologists have denied 
the existence of consciousness. If, therefore, the fundamental 
fact of our mental life is apparently in doubt, it is necessary 
for us to point out clearly just what we mean by this funda- 
mental fact. 

James has likened consciousness to a flowing stream. The 
analogy is, after all, an apt one. It suggests the continuity of 
our waking experience. This waking experience is roughly what 
we understand by consciousness. Man is said to be conscious or 
unconscious. What goes on in his mind when he is said to be 
conscious constitutes his consciousness. In other words, con- 
sciousness is a generic term that we use to designate the various 
forms of experience that we are aware of in our mental life. 
When, therefore, we say that the human mind is conscious or 

13 


14 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND 


possesses consciousness, we do not mean to maintain that there 
is any generic mental experience over and above the specific forms 
of which we are aware. To do so would be to lose sight of the 
meaning of generic terms. Trees exist but there is no tree which 
is not a special kind of tree, which is neither oak nor maple nor 
elm nor hickory nor walnut, but only a tree. So, also, conscious- 
ness exists, but there is no consciousness apart from the specific 
forms in which it manifests itself. Thus we are conscious when 
we think, we see, we hear, we are angry, we are annoyed, we are 
joyful, we are sad, ete. By consciousness, therefore, we merely 
mean to designate the manifold experiences of our waking life, 
and no one can deny that we do have experiences of some sort 
in our waking life. 

James’ figure, which compares consciousness to a flowing 
stream, truly points out the continuity of our mental life. For 
certainly in our normal waking life the modes of experience 
vary, but there are no lapses such as occasionally take place 
when an epileptic has a petit mal attack, becomes dazed for a 
moment and knows nothing of what may transpire during his 
lapse of consciousness. The normal human being in his waking 
life knows no such lapses. He may be distracted, his thought 
may not follow any one direction for a very long time, but con- 
sciousness in some form is always present. And though sensa- 
tions come suddenly, and disappear when they do come, they 
do not awaken us from a state of unconsciousness but suddenly 
break our flow of thought, as when the river in its downward 
course meets a rocky crag and breaks in bubbling streamers on 
either side. So our waking life is one continuous flow of experi- 
ences whose character is much more varied than the water in 
any stream. 

Is consciousness ever interrupted? In sleep it seems that 
consciousness ceases, but no one can ever remember the exact 
moment of becoming unconscious even in sleep. Consciousness 
seems to fade into another type of experience of which we have 
fragments in our memory when we awaken and recall to mind 
the fragments of our dreams. It is not clear that dream-life 
itself is not a continuous, unbroken stream of conscious experi- 


CONSCIOUSNESS 15 


ence at a lower level. It is not even absolutely certain that con- 
sciousness ceases under ether or as the result of shock or accident. 
Nevertheless, seeing that in these states the individual gives no 
evidence of conscious life and has no memory of anything having 
transpired during the state, he would be rash indeed who would 
maintain as a certainty that consciousness continues in such states 
as these. 

What, we may ask, is the ultimate nature of consciousness ? 
To answer this question one must enter the field of metaphysics. 
Properly speaking, it is no task of psychology, and one may go 
on and study a great deal about the facts of consciousness with- 
out ever knowing anything at all about their ultimate nature. 
Thus, though chemistry and physics go back in their origins to 
disputations about the nature of matter, progress in these sciences 
came only after men gave up seeking an answer to the ultimate 
question. And so it can be with psychology. Psychology need 
not answer the question of the nature of consciousness before it 
investigates the operations of the mind. Nevertheless, it may be 
pardonable to raise the question and suggest a philosophic answer. 

Consciousness, though continuous as a stream of awareness 
or waking experience, is always in any single one of its actual 
manifestations a transitory phenomenon. When we look at these 
phenomena individually, consciousness does not resemble a stream 
but rather the fireflies that flash in the night. An experience 
comes and an experience goes. What are these phenomena which 
arise more or less suddenly and abruptly and then disappear as 
quickly or fade gradually into oblivion? 

All things in nature may be classified as substances or as 
accidents. Substances have independent existence, such as coal, 
iron, earth, air, water, trees, animals, etc. Accidents never exist 
apart from substances. They may be looked upon as character- 
istics of a substance. Shape, for instance, cannot exist independ- 
ently and apart from some object whose form it outlines. Color 
eannot exist without something colored. Motion or action of any 
kind cannot exist without something that moves or acts. And so 
consciousness appears to us not as a substance but as an accident, 
an action of some kind. It is, therefore, the activity of some- 


16 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND 


thing. We know it only in ourselves and we are living organisms. 
We assume that it exists in organisms that are similar to our 
own. We find that in some manner it is connected with organisms © 
possessing nervous systems. For organisms without a nervous 
system, such as plants, do not in general manifest those actions 
which resemble our behavior in our conscious waking life. 

Consciousness, therefore, is in some manner the activity of a 
living organism of a definite type, not of any organism. It is not 
likely that it would be a mere chemical reaction, for as we under- 
stand chemical reactions we do not see any identity between the 
shifting of atomic groupings and those experiences which we 
recognize as conscious. At least, in the ultimate analysis, there 
is no possibility of identifying consciousness with ordinary move- 
ment governed by the relations of mass and velocity. And yet 
we see from the study of physics and of anatomy and of physiology 
that all our sensations in becoming conscious involve mechanical 
motion and chemical change. Consciousness, more than anything 
else, seems to demand in every organism something more than 
chemical activity. 

The German biologist, Driesch,’ feels that the phenomena of 
erowth and regeneration cannot be explained without the assump- 
tion of a vital principle or entelechy in the organism. If this is 
so, the explanation of a conscious organism by mere physics and 
chemistry is much more difficult and would therefore demand 
the assumption of an entelechy as the basis of its conscious life. 
Metaphysically, one should: at least consider the possibility that 
consciousness is not a chemical reaction, nor is it a secretion of 
any gland; it is not a substance; it is not physical motion to which 
all forms of energy are ultimately reduced. It is an activity of 
the vital principle of an organism. This activity is intimately 
associated, but not to be identified, with chemical processes that 
take place in the sense organs, the nerves and the central nervous 
system. When, therefore, we study consciousness, we must not 
forget that it has an organic counterpart, nor is it lawful to 
confound the organic counterpart with consciousness itself, 


~~ +f. infra, p. 405 ff 


CHAPTER III 


THE UNCONSCIOUS 


In 1868, the German philosopher, von Hartmann, published 
his work, Philosophy of the Unconscious. He was not the origina- 
tor of the concept of the unconscious, but he made it popular 
because he conceived of it in a fashion that was likely to appeal 
to the general public. Von Hartmann thought that we had two 
personalities, one our conscious personality, and the other a sec- 
ondary personality hidden down beneath the surface of our ordi- 
nary consciousness. It was nevertheless exactly the same, in its 
structure or in its make-up and its mode of action, as the conscious 
personality of our waking lfe. He even suggested that the 
conscious personality functioned through the cortex of the brain, 
the unconscious personality through the spinal cord and sub- 
cortical ganglia.! Such an idea as this naturally aroused popu- 
lar notice. 

Janet in his L’Automatisme Psychologique attempted to show 
that a number of pathological conditions of the mind may be 
explained by supposing that certain elements of our mental life 
are split off and separated from the control of the conscious per- 
sonality. These split-off elements then act Independently and 
produce phenomena and actions which apparently do not depend 
upon the conscious personality. 

Since the days of von Hartmann and Janet the concept of the 
unconscious has been much discussed. It is certainly very im- 
portant to know whether or not our mental life is split, so that, 
besides the flow of conscious thought, there is another stream 
governing our activity of which we are absolutely unaware. Cer- 
tainly any such idea as this has a bearing on human conduct, and 
if we are going to understand the human personality, we must 
know in what sense and to what extent it is true that we have an 
unconscious mind. 
4p, cit. A, 1, pp. 51-61, sixth edition. 

17 


18 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND 


In order to answer this problem we shall attempt to outline 
the sphere of the unconscious by attempting to find various senses 
in which the unconscious in some form or another or by some 
extension of the meaning of the word must be admitted. 

Acts of consciousness, as we have seen, are activities of some- | 
thing. Spiritualists maintain that they are the activities of a 
spiritual substance. Materialists maintain that they are the 
activities of the brain itself. No matter whether the spiritualists 
or the materialists are right, one thing is clear, and that is, that 
neither the soul nor the brain is given as a conscious fact. In 
other words, the organ of consciousness is not conscious immedi- 
ately and directly of itself. No man perceives his own mind. 
The brain is unknown to those absolutely ignorant of anatomy. 
The soul is a conclusion arrived at by BEE Inet not an object 
of perception.? 

In the second place, not only is the organ of consciousness 
unconscious but the operations of the organ of consciousness, 
whether physiological or psychological, are themselves uncon- 
scious.2 We are not aware of any of the processes that take 
place in our central nervous system as such. Neurochemistry 
is not psychology. All neurological processes as such are there- 
fore unconscious. What is true of the physiological functioning 
of the mind is true also of its psychical functioning. The mind 
has various functions that it makes use of in its operations. 
Thus, association and memory are mental functions, but we are 
never conscious of association as a function, or memory as a 
function, but only of their end-results. One idea may bring up 
another idea. The second idea is often spoken of as an association. 
This second idea is conscious, but of the process of association, by 
which the first called up the second, we are not aware. By mem- 
ory, which is very akin to association, we are able to live over 
again our past experiences. When these past experiences revive 
as memories, they are conscious, but the ‘‘function of memory,”’ 
by means of which the past is recalled, of that we have no aware- 
ness whatsoever. 


2 Cf. hereon, St. Thomas, Summa Theologica, I. Q. Ixxxvii, Art. 1. 
* Cf. St. Thomas, Summa Theologica, I. Q. Ixxxvii, Art. 3. 


THE UNCONSCIOUS 19 


Our mental habits, whether in their ultimate nature they are 
psychical dispositions or neurological traces, are absolutely out- 
side the field of consciousness.* They may influence conscious 
life, but their nature, their character, or anything whatsoever 
about them, is not given to us among the immediate data of 
consciousness. 

Let us now introduce the term ‘‘ subconscious.’’ There are 
some things that are neither strictly conscious, nor strictly un 
conscious, but occupy an intermediate position. Thus conscious- 
ness has a field which has been compared to the field of vision. 
In the field of vision there is a certain small region which is 
referred to as the focus point. It is a very limited area that may 
be seen clearly without any movement of the eyes. Outside of 
this limited field, everything is more or less blurred. This region, 
in contrast to the focus point, is termed the field of vision. 

Precisely the same thing takes place in our conscious life. 
We are keenly aware of some one or two things to which we pay 
strict attention. We are very dimly aware of everything else 
in the stream of consciousness. Of some of these things we are 
so dimly aware, when our attention is not called to them, that it 
would almost seem that they are not conscious at all. If a clock 
strikes while we are working, and someone shortly afterwards 
asks us if the clock has struck, we may perhaps be able to answer, 
but the interval is very short in which that experience fades 
entirely from the mind. Many things are present continually 
in the mind, and when our attention is called to them, we are 
aware of them, but can scarcely be said to be conscious of them 
when our attention is not directed to them, e.g., the pressure of 
clothes on the body, the temperature of the body, are usually not 
objects of experience; the tension of the skin in the various 
positions of the members of the body seldom becomes conscious 
unless it becomes painful as in illness; the overtones of a note on 
the piano may be picked out once our attention has been ealled 
to them. In a certain sense we were conscious of them before, 
but as individual experiences we certainly were not aware of 
them. All of these things may be termed subconscious. In fact, 
~~ *Of. St. Thomas, Summa Theologica, I. Q. Ixxxvii, Art. 2. 


20 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND 


everything which we may recognize as belonging in any manner 
to the field of consciousness which can be brought to the focus 
point of consciousness at any time, may be said to be subcon- 
scious. Naturally, there are many degrees of the subconscious. 
The intensity of consciousness, however, fades very rapidly from 
the focus point to the contiguous regions of the field. 

So far, however, we have not come to the crucial problem. 
There are many states of mind, forms of consciousness, that flit 
about in the outskirts of our mind and no one doubts the sub- 
conscious. But are there any mental states that are not even 
in the field of consciousness? Are there, in other words, two 
fields of consciousness that have no connection with one another, 
but exist on different planes, one above, the other below? 

Bleuler,® among other lines of evidence for unconscious mental 
states, speaks of the sensations of reflex action in balancing. Thus, 
when we walk, stimuli come from the soles of our feet, from the 
skin, muscles and tendons and enable us to step out with ease 
and maintain the erect posture. But we are not aware of any 
sensations exercising a control over the mechanism of walking. 

It may be possible that sensations, real mental phenomena, are 
involved in the control of such movements as walking or in stand- 
ing, sitting, ete., or in the performance of many habitual acts as 
washing, dressing, playing a musical instrument, ete. But while 
this is possible, it is also possible and even more probable, that 
this control may come from mere stimuli that remain neurological 
phenomena throughout, and never rise to the conscious level, 
never become even unconscious mental processes. 

Clear evidence of the existence of unconscious mental states 
must, therefore, be sought in other fields. 

Bleuler also points out the evidence that may be adduced 
from the study of hysterical ansesthesia. 

Many patients have areas.over their body of greater or less 
extent that are absolutely insensitive. They are said to be 
anesthetic. In these regions you may eut or burn without any 
manifestation that the patient is aware of any kind of sensation 


**“ Das Unbewusste,” Journal fiir Psychol. und Neurol., XX, Ergiin- 
zungsheft, 2, pp. 89-90. 


THE UNCONSCIOUS 21 


whatsoever. These areas do not correspond to the distribution 
of the sensory nerves nor to the root region in the cord, nor to 
the projection diagram of the cerebral cortex. They are not 
really cut off from the central nervous system. 

Binet has made some interesting experiments in which he 
shows that such areas are still capable of responding to stimuli. 
Thus, if a patient has an anesthetic arm and you screen it from 
him, it is possible to get into communication with the arm while 
the patient apparently knows nothing of what is going on. The 
arm supposed to be devoid of all feeling will tap a finger just 
as many times as the anesthetic skin is touched; it may even 
execute automatic writing, expressing opinions about the experi- 
menter, etc., and still apparently the owner of the arm knows 
nothing of what is going on. 

I have never tried these experiments myself, nor seen them 
demonstrated by others. If, however, the facts are as Binet pre- 
sents them, they could be conveniently explained by the existence 
of unconscious mental states in the mind of the subject con- 
trolling the behavior of the arm. 

Bleuler also speaks of the motives of action in conduct and 
maintains that conduct is often inexplicable unless one supposes 
over and above the reasons alleged for behavior other reasons 
of which the person is not aware. 

We have only to recall the men in the parable, who all at 
once commenced to make excuses, to realize that alleged reasons 
are often insufficient to explain conduct. If we study conduct 
and the alleged reasons by which it is explained, we shall have 
no difficulty in assuring ourselves that the alleged reasons are 
often insufficient. I think, also, that it will frequently be found 
that those who give the reasons are often perfectly sincere and 
truly convineed that their actions are adequately explained by the 
motives they advance. 

Granted then this is so, it would not, without any shadow 
of doubt, prove anything more than that people are often uncon- 
scious of the relation of certain ideas to their conduct. 

Thus, in cases of excuse the conduct is not to be explained 
by the reasons given. But are there not reasons flitting about in 


Q2 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND 


the subconscious mind, or conscious mind, of the subject that are 
fully adequate to account for his behavior? What is unconscious 
may be, not the real motives, but the relation of these real motives — 
to conduct. 

Thus, in the war, some soldiers developed what was termed 
an anxiety neurosis. They fell into an unreasonable anxiety that 
incapacitated them for duty. I studied several such patients in 
France who attributed their anxiety to the fear that some of 
their relatives were dead at home. They said that this must be 
the case, otherwise they would have had letters from them. There 
was always, however, a good reason why letters should not have 
been received. The postal service was abominable, necessarily 
perhaps, and whether good or bad they had been out of contact 
with it by reason of their position at the front. The real reason 
for their anxiety and its teleological incapacitation was not that 
they were afraid of a death at home, but of their own death on 
the muddy fields of sunny France. 

But were these men wnconscious of thew fear? By no means. 
But I do believe, from my personal examination, that some of 
them did not consciously connect their conduct with its real 
motive—the fear of death.® 

This leads us on to the consideration of what is termed the 
complex, an emotionally toned experience, that is looked upon 
as having been forgotten but, nevertheless, by its associations 
affecting behavior. 

White, in his Mental Mechanisms, explains it by the following 
simile: Suppose a child has a boil on its arm. A physician is 
ealled and enters the room with his little black bag. He asks to 
see the arm which the child innocently and unsuspectingly shrugs 
up for his inspection. The physician opens the black bag, removes 
a knife and with a quick movement plunges it into the boil and 
evacuates its contents. The next day when the physician calls 
with his black bag he cannot get near the child without it erying 
and screaming. Some time later, let us suppose, a visitor comes 
with a black bag. The child sees the bag and immediately com- 
mences to make an outery. His mother hushes his erying and 
(36 Chinfray p) 208y) Nake OTS Guay Aa Ay eon eee a 


THE UNCONSCIOUS 23 


assures him that the caller is not a bad doctor with a knife. But 
for some time afterward the child has a horror of black bags. 
Perhaps later on, having forgotten the incident, he has a peculiar, 
inexplicable antipathy to people with black bags, or that wear 
black, or perhaps even to black things in general. When he sees 
black things, he does not recall the incident in which the boil 
was lanced with a knife taken from a black bag. That incident 
is a complex which is forgotten and has sunken into the depths 
of the unconscious. It is unconscious itself, and its relation to 
the child’s subsequent behavior when a man, is also unconscious. 

According to theory, therefore, the complex is an emotionally 
toned incident which is or may be forgotten, but which, neverthe- 
less, is awakened to activity, producing its original emotional 
resonance, without the subject having the slightest inkling of the 
true cause of his unreasonable behavior. 

Many cases are given by psychoanalysts of incidents, for- 
gotten beyond the power of recall, but unearthed by them from 
the depths of the unconscious. These forgotten incidents fune- 
tion in the way just described as characteristic of the complex. 
I would not call in question the existence of really unconscious 
incidents that function as complexes, that is, incidents that before 
analysis had been forgotten by the patient beyond the possibility 
of recall. I have, however, never found such wholly unconscious 
complexes in any of my patients; but I have frequently found 
incidents of one kind or another that analysis showed were con- 
nected with the patient’s behavior and yet the patient prior to 
analysis had no idea of the association that had been welded 
between these past events and his subsequent conduct. 

According to the Freudian concept mere analysis suffices for 
clearing up mental difficulties. The cure is likened to the opening 
of a boil. A complex is a mental boil and when opened up and 
discharged, the psyche heals. In my experience, analysis alone 
seldom effects a cure. The analysis of a pathological association, 
however, is a real aid. 

Its mechanism may be conceived of in this way. Suppose a 
man whom you ingenuously credited with good intentions had 
been giving you advice and profoundly influencing your conduct. 


QA THE ANALYSIS OF MIND 


Suppose that some day you should discover that he was not 
considering your interests, but his own; not attempting to 
help you, but to use you for his own ends. The next time he 
offered advice it would be robbed of its former potency, because 
you had an insight into its true meaning. So, also, when by 
analysis one understands the relation between conduct and com- 
plex, he seems to say to himself: And so that is all I am worry- 
ing about—that is the reason for my attraction or my fear; and 
what influenced him so profoundly before is robbed of its potency. 

The following case illustrates this mechanism. A young lady 
came to the clinic; among other difficulties she had an unreason- 
able attraction for a man very much older than herself. He 
had never spoken to her about marriage and perhaps would have 
been surprised had he known the extent of her affection for him. 
This affection kept her from becoming interested in anyone else; 
but to marry such an old man would probably have ended un- 
happily. Merely taking the history of her life revealed that from 
childhood she had absolutely worshipped her father, and had a 
tremendous respect for anything he said in spite of his having 
been several times in an asylum. When eleven years of age 
she saw her mother, one day, with a gash in the side of her cheek. 
Her mother told her that she had been hit by something on a 
train; but she soon learned that her father had attacked her with 
a knife. Someone said her father was insane. The word shocked 
her and she has avoided it ever since. That night she was sent 
to a circus and when she returned she learned that her father 
was gone. She was dreadfully depressed, lonely and hopeless. 
But she kept her difficulties to herself. Her father returned home 
again several times but had repeatedly to be taken away. After 
one of these removals she met the elderly gentleman, a lawyer 
who took care of her father’s financial affairs. She felt that she 
was in love with him from that time on, but saw no hope of mar- 
riage and no other prospect for herself in the future. 

Explanation of the mechanism of pathological association and 
the probable substitution of the lawyer for her father dissipated 
the peculiar charm that the lawyer held over her, and gave her 
once more her freedom. 


THE UNCONSCIOUS 25 


From this discussion of the complex we may conclude that 
the influence of ideas and memories on the mental life of individu- 
als may be real and extensive and yet the relation of cause and 
effect between the ideas and memories and their resonance in the 
mental life, may be utterly unknown to the subject. 

We have two classes of memories: 


a. Memories subject to recall with little or no difficulty. 
b. Memories beyond the power of recall or subject to recall 
only in response to special methods of analysis. 


Can memories of the latter sort, truly unconscious memories, 
produce the same effects as the former? The literature says yes, 
and there is no good reason for calling the verdict in question. 
Whether either type of memory produces its effects as mental 
or physical traces in the substrate of our mental life or by being 
aroused to the condition of unconscious mental states, cannot 
be decided. But until it is proven that these memories produce 
their effects not as traces but truly as mental states, they cannot 
be adduced as evidence of ‘* unconscious conscious processes, ’’ and 
what we seek now is evidence of these ‘‘ unconscious conscious 
processes.’’ The apparent contradiction need not be cause for 
concern. The conscious processes of one man are unconscious to 
another, for they are unconnected one with another. The con- 
scious processes in the twilight state of epilepsy are not known by 
those of the normal states, because they are unconnected. This 
lack of connection may make possible two simultaneous streams 
of consciousness, just as there might be branches of a river wholly 
unconnected on either side of a long island between them. 

Are there any such islands in the stream of consciousness? 

The most direct evidence is that produced by Morton Prince 
in an experiment on post-hypnotie suggestion.’ 

‘‘While the subject was in hypnosis the problem was given 
to add 458 and 367, the calculation to be done subconsciously after 
she was awake. The problem was successfully accomplished in 
the usual way. The mode in which the calculation was effected 
was then investigated with the following result: In what may 


"The Unconscious, second edition, 1921, pp. 169-171, 
3 


26 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND 


be termed for convenience, the secondary consciousness, 7.e., the 
subconsciousness, the numbers 458 and 367 appear as distinct 
visualizations. These numbers were placed one over the other, — 
‘ with a line underneath them, such as one makes in adding. The 
visualization kept coming and going, sometimes the line was 
crooked and sometimes it was straight; the secondary conscious- 
ness did not do the sum at once, but by piecemeal. It took a long 
time before it was completed.’ The sum was not apparently done 
as soon as one would do it when awake by volitional calculation, 
but rather, the figures added themselves in a curious sort of way, 
the numbers were visualized and the visualization kept coming 
and going and the columns at different times added themselves, 
as it seemed, the result appearing at the bottom. 

‘In another problem (453 to be multiphed by 6), the process 
was described as follows: The numbers were visualized in a line, 
thus 453x 6. Then the 6 arranged itself under the 453. The 
numbers kept coming and going the same as before. Sometimes, 
however, they added themselves and sometimes the 6 substracted 
itself from the larger number. Finally, however, the result 
was obtained. As in the first problem, the numbers kept coming 
and going in the secondary consciousness until the problem was 
solved and then they ceased to appear. It is to be understood, 
of course, that the normal or personal consciousness was not 
aware of these coconscious figures, or even that any calculation 
was being or to be performed.’’ 

Taken at its face value, this experiment would demonstrate 
the existence of these unconscious conscious processes. The ex- 
ample quoted is but one of many experiments in which these un- 
conscious processes, or, aS Prince terms them, coconscious ideas 
were described. Prince writes of the experiment as follows: 

‘* The description of these ideas has been very precise and 
has carried a conviction, I believe, to all those who have had an 
opportunity to be present at these observations that these recol- 
lections were true memories and not fabrications.’’ § 

But hypnotie subjects are very much inclined to give the 
hypnotizer any answer they may guess that he expects, and are 
GE8Ops ott, pp. 168-160) a Fe 4a) ARDS Ube) Lae heh 


THE UNCONSCIOUS Q7 


inclined not so much to pure fabrication but to what might be 
termed the delusion of suggestion. Such suspicions cannot help 
but throw a cloud on the evidence; but with all that, Morton 
Prince’s experiment is very suggestive and inclines one strongly 
to the conclusion that coconscious processes are real elements in 
our mental life. | 

But, you may say, what happens to human responsibility if 
the mind is subject to unconscious drives ? 

Take for instance, such cases as those reported by Healy. A 
boy, having learned bad sexual practices and stealing from one 
and. the same companion, developed a peculiar, periodic, appar- 
ently unmotivated drive to steal. What has happened is that 
the patient has developed a pathological association between steal- 
ing and sexuality with which its learning had been combined. 
Thereafter, stealing had a sexual charm that usually and nor- 
mally does not belong to it at all. The patient does not know the 
source of its peculiar attractiveness. Healy has cured such cases 
by analysis. With insight into the origin of the charm the asso- 
ciation was broken up.® 

It is not necessary for us to know why a course of action 
appeals to us in order to resist it. The sexual drive is strong, 
but not irresistible. The fact that it masks itself under the temp- 
tation to steal does not make it overpowering. The unconscious 
by shuffling the cards makes peculiar and uncanny problems but 
not insoluble ones. We are all subject to pathological associa- 
tions. No one can render an account of all his likes and dislikes. 
But it is not necessary in order to behave ourselves with decency 
and discretion. Something may appeal with a peculiar, inde- 
seribable and inexplicable charm. Analysis of the charm is not 
necessary in order to see whether or not the course of action it 
leads to is or is not in accord with the ideals of conduct. The 
ability to compare action with the standards of conduct is the 
root of freedom. If we would escape the drive of the unconscious 
we must regulate our conduct according to principle. If, how- 


°Cf. Wm. Healy, Mental Conflicts and Misconduct, Boston, 1917, 
p. 183 ff. 


28 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND 


ever, we follow whims and fancies and thoughtlessly yield to 
desires the unconscious bears us along and we know not whither 
we are going. 

From the above discussion it is clearly evident that there 
are conscious mental processes and subconscious mental proc- 
esses. It is very likely also that there are unconscious mental 
processes. May we also say that besides the unconscious 
mental processes there is also a subconscious personality ? 

To answer this question we must distinguish between two 
senses of the word personality ; (a) the metaphysical sense and (b) 
the empirical sense. 

The metaphysical personality is the ultimate substrate of our 
mental life. Materialists would say that this ultimate substrate 
is the brain. On this theory it is clear that there is in any one 
man only one central nervous system. Though it is conceivable 
that the conscious might be connected with one part of the 
nervous system, and the unconscious with another and though 
some authors have pointed to the two cerebral hemispheres, and 
others to the subcortical ganglia as possible explanations of the 
duality of the mind, nevertheless such suggestions have no foun- 
dation in fact and are pure conjectures. 

If, however, the ultimate substrate of our mental life is a 
spiritual psyche or soul, there is no reason to suppose that in 
any one organism there is more than one ‘‘ entelechy ’’ or vital 
principle of its growth and consciousness. 

Metaphysically, therefore, there 1s but one personality. 

What, now, do we understand by personality in the empiri- 
eal sense? It is our concept of ourselves, our memory of our life, 
into which is set, like jewels in a ring, the mental events of the 
present. There may be fluctuations in the emotional tone of 
this complex of mental processes but usually even in emotional 
life there is a certain unity in its undercurrent. 

If for any reason the unity of memory is broken, the empirical 
personality disappears as a stream sometimes flows underground 
only to appear again, further on. Normal interruptions of our 
mental life occur during sleep, but when we awaken the same 
old self makes itself manifest. In epilepsy one may distinguish 


THE UNCONSCIOUS 29 


two empirical selves, the normal self and the twilight self. 
Usually the twilight self has only sporadic minutes of existence. 
Sometimes, however, these minutes lengthen into days. 

Besides these epileptic transformations of personality which 
are common enough there are alterations of personality in indi- 
viduals who show no signs of epilepsy whatsoever. I have never 
had the good fortune to study any of these cases myself. Cases, 
however, are reported of more or less sudden changes of per- 
sonality. One personality will be quiet, refined, sedate, the other 
noisy, vulgar and tom-boyish. One personality knows only by 
hearsay what the other one does. The memories of one, there- 
fore, are unconscious to the other. In one and the same individual 
there are two streams of consciousness apparently wholly uncon- 
nected. When one is above ground, the other is below. The 
sphtting of the empirical personality may go even further. Three 
and more personalities in the same individual have been described. 

The physiology of such changes is even more undeveloped 
than their psychology. If we understood the physiological basis 
of the continuity of memory we would undoubtedly have a better 
insight into their nature. On the psychological side our own 
subconscious life and alterations of mood are perhaps the basis 
of these more marked transformations of personality. But in 
the midst of all these changes, great or little, there is only one 
psychie field in which they occur, and that is the one Ego, the one 
metaphysical personality, the one substrate of our mental life. 


CHAPTER IV 
DREAMS AND THE UNCONSCIOUS 


Berrore approaching the study of the various methods of 
analyzing the unconscious it will be useful to understand some- 
thing about the theory of dreams, for one of the most important 
methods of analyzing the unconscious is the method of dream 
interpretation. Sigmund Freud has the credit for giving the psy- 
chological world its first true insight into the nature of dreams. 
We shall therefore commence our study of dreams with an out- 
line and criticism of the Freudian view. 

According to Freud, ‘‘ some reference to the experiences of 
the day which has most recently passed 1s to be found m every 
dream.’’ 4 

He gives various examples in which he has been able to trace 
the dream to some incident which transpired in the day that 
had just elapsed. In my own experience with dream analysis 
this principle seems in general justified. Sometimes, however, 
the incident which gives rise to the dream is not the day just 
past but dates two or three days previous to the night of the 
dream. It is true also, as Freud suggests, that something which 
is apparently trivial is the starting point in which the dream 
takes its rise. Thus, a middle aged lady reported to me the 
following dream as one that had absolutely no meaning. She 
dreamt that she had been an ostrich feather and had been changed 
into a feather duster. Analysis revealed that she was really 
very much worried about the approach of old age. The dream, 
therefore, has the following interpretation. In her youthful 
days she was the ostrich feather; now no one pays any attention 
to her, everyone passes her by and she is neglected. The source 
of the dream was related, by association, to her noticing the day 
previous a feather which had fallen from a feather duster on 


*The Interpretation of Dreams, English translation, New York, 1913, 
p. 139. 


30 


DREAMS AND THE UNCONSCIOUS 31 


the floor, and for some reason or another the thought came to 
her mind that everybody was walking over this neglected piece 
of feather duster. In her waking hours she did not see the analogy 
between the much-trampled feather and herself, but in the night- 
time her anxiety expressed itself in a dream by a symbolism 
which had its origin in a trivial incident of the previous day’s 
experience. As we shall see, in the theory of dreams outlined 
below, dream-life probably takes its start in the thought of the 
day that has just elapsed. It is not, therefore, surprising that 
the dream is associated with the incidents of the day before. 

Not only is the dream according to Freud related to the day 
that has just elapsed, but it also goes back to the experiences of 
early childhood. Thus, he says: ‘‘ The dream often appears 
ambiguous, not only may several wish-fulfilments, as the examples 
show, be united in it, but one meaning or one wish-fulfilment may 
also conceal another, until at the bottom one comes upon the ful- 
filment of a wish from the earliest period of childhood; and here 
too it may be questioned whether ‘ often ’ in this sentence may 
not more correctly be replaced by ‘regularly.’ ’’? 

He gives the following example: ‘‘ A physician in the thirties 
tells me that a yellow lion, about which he can give the most de- 
tailed information, has often appeared in his dream-life from 
the earliest period of his childhood to the present day. This 
lion, known to him from his dreams, was one day discovered 77 
natura as a long forgotten object made of porcelain and on that 
occasion the young man learned from his mother that this object 
had been his favorite toy in childhood, a fact which he himself 
could no longer remember.’’ ® 

In my own experience the word ‘‘ often ’’ in Freud’s state- 
ment should not be replaced by ‘‘ regularly ’’’ but rather 
by ‘‘ seldom.’’ 

According to Freud also, all dreams have in them something 
of a sexual element. Here again it would seem that the tendency 
to generalize is exaggerated, for it can scarcely be proved that 
all dreams have in them a sexual element, but only that many 


2 Op. cit., p. 184. 
* Op. cit., p. 159. 


32 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND 


dreams that seem free from it are nevertheless found on analy- 
sis to reveal some kind of hidden sexuality. 

The third and fourth chapters of Freud’s Interpretation of © 
Dreams constitute an attempt on his part to demonstrate that 
all dreams whatsoever are wish-fulfilments, and that there is no 
such thing as a fear or an anxiety expressing itself in our dream- 
life. He points out that the dreams of children are frequently 
plain, ungarnished wish-fulfilments. This I think anyone will 
be able to confirm who pays attention from time to time to the 
dreams that children recount. Thus, for example, I remember 
a child at a little inn where I stopped over night on a tramp 
through the Sierra Nevadas: The child was told that a lion 
inhabited a big black crevice in the rocks above and that if he 
would wait up at night he could see him come out in the moon- 
light and hear him roar. Naturally, the child wished to stay up 
and hear the lion, but was put to bed. The next morning he 
came down in great glee rubbing his hands and telling how he 
dreamt of the big hon coming out of the rock and prancing about 
and roaring to his heart’s content. The child, therefore, was 
not to be outdone. He was forbidden to stay up and see the lion 
so he got out of the difficulty by seeing him in a dream. 

Naturally, Freud does not maintain that all dreams are plain, 
ungarnished wish-fulfilments for this would be disproved by 
nightmares and various frightful experiences in dreams. The 
dreams of adults, he says, are seldom like the dreams of children 
because of the distortion that the wish must suffer in order to 
attain its expression. We must, therefore, distinguish between 
the manifest and the latent content of dreams. The manifest 
content is usually a meaningless phantasmagoria in which per- 
sonalities are disguised. In the disguised personality there is, 
however, usually something of the nature of the devil’s cloven 
hoof that betrays his character, such as the color of the hair, 
the presence of a beard, a peculiarity in the clothing, ete. One 
eannot, according to Freud, argue from the fact that persons in 
a dream are men or women, that, therefore, they must refer to 
men or women in reality; for a man may appear as a woman in 
a dream and vice versa. Furthermore, dream personalities are 


DREAMS AND THE UNCONSCIOUS 33 


sometimes the telescoping into one of several individuals in real 
life. From the fact that one dreams of some frightful and terri- 
fying incident you cannot argue that the dream does not repre- 
sent a wish-fulfilment. Thus, for instance, a young lady dreamt 
of her father’s death. She had a real affection for her father. 
How is it possible for a dream of this kind to represent a wish- 
fulfilment? As a matter of fact, however, her father was an 
invalid, absorbed a great deal of her time in caring for him, 
and prevented her mingling in social activities for which she had 
a craving. His death alone could free her, but to consciously 
think of this would be against the natural principles of a dutiful 
daughter. Therefore, she repressed into the background of con- 
sciousness any wish that might make itself manifest to obtain her 
freedom by her father’s death. The unconscious, however, is no 
respector of persons or of principles. It wants what it desires 
without regard to consequences or the ideals imposed by educa- 
tion, or the sanctions of morality. The dream of the girl, there- 
fore, represents an unconscious wish, a desire for freedom. In 
this way it may be proved that many dreams are wish-fulfilments 
in spite of their manifest content, but can we, from any amount 
of analysis, demonstrate that all dreams are wish-fulfilments? I 
might mention cases where patients have dreamt of deaths of 
individuals in which no reason could be found by analysis why 
these patients would desire the death of the person of whom 
they dreamt. The Freudians will answer to any such cases as 
these that the dream is not adequately analyzed, in fact, Freud 
disposed of a number of dreams that are apparently exceptions 
to his theory in the following way: ‘‘If I group the ever fre- 
quently occurring dreams of this sort, which seem flatly to con- 
tradict my theory, in that they contain the denial of a wish or 
some occurrence decidedly unwished for, under the head of 
counter wish-dreams, I observe that they may all be referred to 
two principles, of which one has not yet been mentioned, although 
it plays a large part in the dreams of human beings. One of 
the motives inspiring these dreams is the wish that I should 
appear in the wrong. These dreams regularly occur in the course 
of my treatment if the patient shows a resistance to me, and 


34 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND 


I ean count with a large degree of certainty upon causing such a 
dream after I once explain to the patient my theory that the 
dream is a wish-fulfilment.’’ + : 

It may be that Freud is right in referring the dreams that 
seem to be exemplifications of the inadequacy of his theory to a 
desire on the part of the patient to prove that his theory is 
wrong. Asa matter of fact, patients do attempt to demonstrate 
the falsity of the theory when once it has been proposed to them 
or at least they will give a dream which is apparently not a wish- 
fulfilment and say: ‘‘There, this shows that the theory is not 
eorrect.’’ Thus a patient once related to me as disproving the 
wish-fulfilment theory of dreams that she had dreamt that her 
mother had gone to live with her sister-in-law. ‘‘There,’’ she 
said, ‘‘ is a perfectly common-place event that has no relation 
whatsoever to any wish-fulfilment.’’ One of the patient’s diffi- 
culties, however, was precisely with her mother, inasmuch as her 
mother had the unfortunate habit of drinking too much, and 
during these times had caused the patient serious trouble and 
anxiety. Knowing this I immediately asked the patient if she 
did not have a grudge against her sister-in-law. She answered 
with some vehemence: ‘‘ I hate her.’’ The meaning therefore is 
apparent. She wishes to burden her sister-in-law with the troubles 
that she has with her mother. 

It would be very difficult by Freudian methods, however, to 
prove or disprove the Freudian theory. Whether or not all 
dreams are wish-fulfilments must be determined by the theory 
of dreams itself. According to Freud the reason why dreams are 
symbolic and not plain downright wish-fulfilments is that there 
exists in our mental life a censor. Education and environment 
place upon us many restrictions and, therefore, we cannot do 
all the things that we would like to do, we become ashamed of 
those things that society frowns upon. We look on them as un- 
worthy of ourselves, and therefore repress them, banishing them 
utterly from our mental life. The censor does not allow these 
things to appear in consciousness in a plain, ungarnished form. 
Freud says: ‘‘ The censor behaves analogously to the Russian 
newspaper censor on the frontier, who allows to fall into the hands 
Gs Op. Cth, pp. 188-184. ( 0. )) | lle een PG) bl ger iin 


DREAMS AND THE UNCONSCIOUS 35 


of his protected readers only those foreign journals that have 
passed under the black pencil.’’® 

No explanation has ever been given of the psychological nature 
of this censor. He is awake both day and night, eternally active 
with his black pencil. 

I determined to obtain some light on the theory of dreams by 
a study of what I termed hypnotic analogies.® 

If one dozes off to sleep in day time he frequently passes from 
a trend of thought of waking life into something which is very 
much akin to what occurs in our dreams, for example: 

‘‘ T was reading this morning the epistle of St. Clement to 
the Corinthians. I looked up the word zapdézrwya, finding the 
- sense ‘ a fall beside,’ metaphorically, a transgression. <A little 
later I dozed off and saw a chute such as one sees in a depot where 
trunks are allowed to slide along a curved inclined plane to the 
floor below. Numbers of red mattresses, rolled up and tied with a 
cord, were tumbling down the inclined plane and as they reached 
the floor below fell off at the sides. At first I could see nothing 
with which the peculiar scene could be connected, presently I 
thought of zapérrwya and the ‘fall beside.’ 

‘“The railroad seemed to me to be in some way connected with 
the Union Station at Washington where I came in last night at 
about eleven. J do not remember any association with red mat- 
tresses—except the red bags of feathers used in Germany. I was 
very sleepy on the car on my way from Baltimore. This might 
have something to do with an association between the station and 
the mattress—via my desire to go to bed. I, therefore, did not see 
trunks going down the chute, but mattresses instead.’’? 

What happens here is that the thought of the day is con- 
tinued immediately into the thought of the hypnotic analogy. 
The hypnotic analogy is not the commencement of a new train 
of thought but a continuation of the old. The type of thought is 
essentially different. The thought of the day is logical, the 

5 Op. cit., p. 419. 

®Psychological Studies from the Catholic University of America, 
Psychological Monographs, 1919, Vol. 27, No. 4, pp. 387-400. 


7“ Fypnotic Analogies,” by Thomas V. Moore, Psychological Mono- 
graphs, Vol. 27, No. 4, p. 393. 


36 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND 


thought of the hypnotie analogy is poetic and symbolic, but the 
symbolism is usually too crude to form a part of what waking life 
would approve of as poetry. In other words, in our waking life 
we have one type of thought dominant, in our dream-life another. 
Various authors have ealled attention to the existence of two 
types of thought in man. Jung refers to it in his Wandlungen 
und Symbole der Libido. Many authors have recognized this type 
of thought in the mental life of precox patients, and here it has 
been termed ‘‘ autistic ’’ thinking. What, we may ask, is the 
reason for the sudden change from logical to symbolic thought 
in passing from our waking to our sleeping mental life? In our 
waking life our thought is largely associated with or affected by 
the activity of perception. In sleeping these sensations are 
replaced by images. When one is about to fall asleep he is fre- 
quently aware of various visual images of the most bizarre charac- 
ter flitting before his mind; at times one may perceive also audi- 
tory or other images. Myer has given to these images the name 
of ‘‘ hypnagogic hallucinations.’’ They are perhaps to be con- 
ceived of as due to the rhythmic activity of the sensory cerebral 
centres. Though ordinarily this activity does not become con- 
scious when actual sensations are present, we do become aware 
of it in the quiet that comes with the advent of sleep. Perception 
in waking life, as may be proved by many examples, is the fusion 
of incoming sensations with past images and categories of ex- 
perience. In our sleeping life the sensations are largely lacking. 
Instead we have a train of thought and the hypnagogic hallueina- 
tions. These hypnagogic hallucinations are seized upon by the 
train of thought, modified by it and woven into the fabric of our 
dreams. No censor is necessary. Dreams are symbolic because 
they are woven not from sensations but hypnagogic hallucinations. 
The trend of thought is not necessarily a drive to wish-fulfilment. 
Anxieties sometimes find their expression in dreams. More fre- 
quently, as dream analysis will show, the trend of thought in 
dreams tends to flow in the channels of repressed desires, and 
so these desires mainly find their expression in dream-life. Seeing 
that repressed desires constitute a large element in our subcon- 
scious or unconscious life the analysis of dreams becomes a very 
important method in the study of the unconscious. 


CHAPTER V 
METHODS OF INVESTIGATING THE UNCONSCIOUS 


WHEN one has had a little experience with mental disorders 
he will soon become convinced that some abnormal forms of be- 
havior do not have their origin and explanation in the con- 
scious levels of the mind. At all events the development of our 
knowledge of the unconscious has come to us from those who have 
devoted themselves to psychiatry, the science of mental disorders. 

Those who had to deal with abnormalities of conduct natur- 
ally sought further insight into those forms of behavior that 
seemed inexplicable at the conscious level. They, therefore, de- 
veloped methods of investigating and analyzing the unconscious 
depths of the mind. 

In the present chapter we shall outline briefly the methods of 
investigating the unconscious. In mental disorders this fre- 
quently means the discovery of some emotionally toned incident 
in the past, a ‘‘complex,’’ which is in some manner related to 
present behavior. 

1. Dream Analysis.—The technique of interpreting dreams is 
very simple. One asks the patient to write out the dream, pref- 
erably immediately upon awaking. If a few hours elapse be- 
tween the time of dreaming and writing out the dream, important 
elements are likely to be forgotten. With the written copy of the 
dream before him, the analyzer commences by writing down a 
phrase. The analyzer then repeats the same to the patient and asks 
him to tell everything that comes to his mind, jotting these things 
down as the patient speaks. To be a good dream analyzer one 
should be a stenographer. The patient is urged to keep nothing 
back that comes to his mind, to exercise no critique over the 
order or appearance of his thoughts, but to let his memories and 
- associations flow forth spontaneously. This is done with one 
phrase after another. In my own experience the first stages of 
this procedure seem hopeless and it is only when one comes to the 

37 


38 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND 


final associations that suddenly the meaning of the dream dawns 
upon him. No dream can be analyzed without revealing a great 
deal of the hidden life of the patient. Before attempting to 
analyze the dreams of others it is necessary, or at least very use- 
ful, to analyze a number of your own. 

2. Free Association.—The method of free association resem- 
bles the technique of analyzing a dream. Without any dream 
the patient is urged to simply proceed to give all memories and 
associations whatsoever that come to his mind. These are written 
down and it is supposed that eventually these memories and asso- 
ciations will lead to the revelation of hidden complexes in the 
patient’s life that may be affecting his conduct. Freud ordinarily 
practised the method by closing the blinds, having the patient 
recline on a couch while he sat behind the head of the patient 
taking down in a note-book all the associations and memories that 
were given. Most psychoanalysts admit that these details are 
superfluous. The patient may as well sit down in the daylight. 

3. Jung’s Method of Controlled Association.—Jung’s con- 
ceived the idea of measuring the association time of a patient’s 
reaction to a series of words. He prepared a list of 100 words. 
The patient is given one of these words and asked to say the first 
thing that comes to his mind. The physician measures with a 
stop-watch the time that elapses between his pronouncing the 
word and the patient’s response by another word. The whole 
list is gone through with, the word of response and the reaction 
time being recorded. When this is over the list is repeated and 
the patient is asked to give the same association as he gave pre- 
viously. This in general he will be able to do. Note is now 
taken of the associations that were exceptionally long, 7.e., any- 
thing over three seconds, of the forgotten associations, of the 
associations that seem peculiar and unnatural, of associations 
which seem to arouse some kind of emotional response in the 
patient; all such associations are recorded as complex indicators. 
They call up the complex and are therefore delayed, or another 
word which does not refer to the complex is chosen by the patient 
instead, and so reaction time is retarded. The physician then 


INVESTIGATING THE UNCONSCIOUS 39 


takes a complex indicator and asks the patient to recall what- 
ever comes to his mind, that is, give a series of associations having 
their starting point in the complex indicator. This series of asso- 
ciations frequently leads to the complex. 

4, Galvanopsychic Reaction.—In this method a series of 
words is used just as in the last. The indication of the complex 
_is found by means of the galvanopsychic reaction. This is 
obtained as follows: A beam of light is thrown upon the mirror 
of a delicate galvanometer and reflected on a transparent scale. 
When the galvanometer swings, the movement of this beam of 
light can be observed on the scale. Electrodes from the galvanom- 
eter are connected with some part of the patient’s body. The 
_ galvanometer swings at once, but settles down after a bit to an 
angle of rest. When a word is spoken it will give a swing, the ex- 
tent of which may be observed by means of the scale. Some words 
cause swings that are three or four times more extensive than 
the others. These are looked upon as complex indicators. I 
have never used the method, but saw it in operation in the hands 
of Doctor von Stauffenberg in Munich. A child of thirteen was 
being observed who came to the hospital with an hysterical paraly- 
sis. All words referring to home gave relatively wide swings and 
it was, therefore, concluded that the child’s home relations were 
unpleasant, which afterward proved to be the ease. 

5. Method of Partial Hypnosis.—The German psychiatrist, 
Frank, has advocated ! the investigation of the unconscious in a 
kind of semi-hypnotie condition in which conscious attention is 
not wholly excluded. He produces a mild degree of hypnosis 
and then asks the patient to recount any images or scenes that he 
experiences. He finds that patients under these circumstances 
experience more or less exciting instances of the past and after 
having lived these instances over again they are free from their 
anxiety. The following case will explain the method. He gives 
an account ‘‘ of a thirty-eight year old man, a motorman on the 

2“ Die Determination physischer und psychischer Symptome im Unter- 


bewusstsein,” Journal fiir Psychologie wnd Neurologic, 1912, XIX, Ergiin- 
zungsheft 1, pp. 249-342, 


40 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND 


city street car line. The patient complained of strong pressure 
in the head, flushing, and especially of vertigo. The symptoms 
were of four years’ duration. He slept well, dreamed a great deal 
but without anxiety. During the day also he did not suffer 
from anxiety. Physical examination was negative except for 
exaggerated knee-jerks. A thorough examination of the ear 
by a specialist revealed no cause for vertigo. The patient was 
very testy, easily breaking out into anger, forgetting himself 
in conversation. He complained of headaches which radiated 
from the occipital to the frontal region. The chief symptom was 
vertigo, which utterly depressed him. This vertigo always set 
in when the patient left his street car. As long as his attention 
was occupied with his work as a motorman he felt absolutely 
nothing. But on leaving his car the vertigo would last for hours, 
in fact until he would go to bed. Momentarily he would at times 
experience a hot flushing in the head which obscured a drumming 
sensation. The condition developed most insidiously, so at first 
he attributed the cause to his diet until finally he noticed » 
that neither this nor alcoholic drinks (patient has always been a 
total abstainer) nor smoking had the slightest influence. On 
the streets, men and houses would become blurred to him, on the 
car the phenomena appeared as soon as he no longer had to fix 
his attention on his work. He attempted, therefore, as much as 
he could, in spite of the prohibition, to talk with passengers in 
order to divert his attention. He was therefore glad if anyone 
came near him so that he could enter into a conversation. Analy- 
sis in the semi-hypnotic condition brought out a whole series 
of frights and states of anxiety which he had formerly experi- 
enced, especially when on duty on his car. With the abreaction, 
the vertigo decreased and after experiencing over again an espe- 
cially terrifying scene, the patient was free from all pathologi- 
cal phenomena, so that he felt as if born anew.”’ 

Frank attributes the reason for the improvement to what he 
terms the abreaction. He thinks that past emotional experiences 
for one reason or another were repressed as to their manifesta- 
tions, producing a state of tension; and when these emotions are 


INVESTIGATING THE UNCONSCIOUS 41 


lived through again in a semi-hypnotic condition and allowed to 
discharge their emotional resonance, this condition of tension 1s 
relieved. Whether or not his theory is correct the method is 
capable of doing the same thing as the Freudian method of free 
association and may sometimes be used with success when Freud’s 
method calls forth no associations. Some have attempted to in- 
vestigate the complex by questioning in a condition of deep hypno- 
sis. Such a method, however, is of hmited application and does 
not seem to lead to a satisfactory analysis. 

Automatic Writing.—Dr. Anita Mihl has recently developed? 
the technique of automatic writing for the investigation of the 
unconscious. A pencil is placed in the patient’s hand and the 
arm hung from some fixture above, so that writing movements 

on the sheet of paper underneath are unobstructed. The patient’s 

attention is then distracted by giving him a book to read. Some 
patients commence to execute automatic phenomena very readily : 
Draw pictures, relate fanciful stories, which may be written every 
alternate line in mirror script, ete. She maintains that the 
method ‘‘may be used as a successful adjunct to psychoanalysis. 
* * * Once succeeding in getting the patient to ‘automat,’ the 
unconscious gives up its material much more readily and for some 
reasons a patient seems to accept her unconscious problems with 
much less disbelief when she sees them on paper written by her- 
self, rather than if she merely utters them verbally. The patient 
may write just simple words, or only nonsense syllables but even 
so each of these by means of free association will generally go 
back to conflict material.’’ 

Simple as the method is, it must not be regarded as a parlor 
experiment. Dangerous symptoms developed in one of her 
patients and the writings had to be discontinued. Automatic 
writing is for serious use by the competent only. 


* Journal of Abnormal Psychology and Sociology, July-September, 1922; 
April-June, 1923. 


CHAPTER VI 


THE CLASSIFICATION OF MENTAL PROCESSES 


IN COMPARING our mental life to a stream that is constantly 
flowing, we have implied that consciousness is continuous and 
not a group of unconnected states of mind. While this is so, it 
does not prevent or exclude the possibility of recognizing in our 
mental life various elements and typical combinations of ele- 
ments different from and capable of being identified with each 
other, but which evidently have the one characteristic in com- 
mon, that they are conscious or in some manner concerned with 
consciousness. 

Origin of Dual Classification —Fundamental differences in 
the states of consciousness have been recognized from the earliest 


days of Greek philosophy, or at least from the time when ° 


Anaxagoras (500 B.C.) distinguished the vods from sensory forms 
of mental content. This distinction between sensory and intellec- 
tual forms of presentation was recognized as fundamental from 
the days of Anaxagoras until the rise of sensationalism in modern 
philosophy. Besides this distinction there was recognized very 
early a fundamental difference between the two forms of cogni- 
tion, sensory or intellectual, and the affective life of the emo- 
tions, desires and volitional activity. The philosophy of Socrates 
clouded this distinction between intellect and will when it did 
away with the virtue of temperance and maintained that all 
virtues were forms of prudence. Stoics attempted to explain 
the affective mental states in terms of our intellectual life. But 
in scholastic philosophy the two-fold distinction between the 
sensory and the intellectual, the cognitive and the appetitive, was 
made the fundamental basis for the classification of the forms 
of consciousness. So that the following dual classification became 
the basis of scholastic psychology: 
42 


CLASSIFICATION OF MENTAL PROCESSES 43 
SCHOLASTIC CLASSIFICATION 


rational 


Cognitive—soul takes in object external 


Mental sensuous 


Faculties internal 


Wi rational 
Appetitive—soul turns towards or away from object 
sensuous 


Origin of Triple Division.—The dual classification was domi- 
nant until the eighteenth century. John George Sulzer (1720- 
1779) in his Berlin lectures in 1751 is said to have departed for 
_ the first time from the traditional division of mental faculties into 
representative and appetitive. At all events, Immanuel Kant made 
the triple division of psychical functions into ideation, feeling and 
willing the systematic basis for his philosophy. It is questionable, 
however, whether this triple division is justifiable, for feeling 
and willing, as we shall see, seem to be more closely united to 
each other than to ideation. They may, therefore, be conceived 
as subdivisions of one group rather than as parallel divisions of 
the forms of consciousness. 

The Fundamental Forms of Mental Activity.—None of 
these classifications clearly distinguishes the following three forms 
of mental activities: 


1. Mental functions. By this I mean the mechanism by which 
the forms of awareness are produced. 

2. Mental products. By this I mean the resultant of the ac- 
tivity of the mental functions, the forms of awareness 
themselves. 

3. Mental dispositions. By this I mean the trace that is left 
of the change that is wrought in the psyche as a result 
of the activity of any of the mental functions. 


Let us now consider this tripartite division a little more in 
detail. It is a tripartite division in a different sense from that 
of Kant. Kant was classifying mental products. We are here 


44 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND 


classifying the fundamental activities of the psyche. The mental 
products, as we shall see, naturally fall into a binary classification. 

Mental Functions.—When consciousness first appears in the 
mental life of a child, or when, in later life, a state of conscious- 
ness suddenly bursts upon the mind, there is always some sort 
of mechanism, mental or physiological, or both together, which 
is involved in its production. Thus, whenever we perceive a 
sensation of any kind whatsoever, there is an activity of the sense 
organ and a corresponding activity of the psyche, as a result 
of which we become aware of some sense quality as a light or a 
tone, an odor, etc. This awareness of sense quality is a sensation. 
We may clearly distinguish between sensation and a sensation 
that is between sensation as a function and sensation as a product. 
In the same way we may distinguish between association as a 
function and association as a product, memory as a function 
and memory as a product; in fact, for every single one of the 
forms of awareness, there must be a corresponding mechanism of 
production. There are, therefore, just as many mechanisms of 
production as there are products, just as many functions of the 
mind as there are forms of awareness. It is characteristic of all 
our mental functions that they are themselves unconscious both 
in their physiological and their psychological stage, if such a 
psychological stage is present as something distinct from the end- 
product, or the state of awareness itself. No one is conscious 
of what goes on in his eye when he sees, nor in the optic nerve, 
nor in the brain; no one is conscious of what takes place in the 
brain or in the psyche when one remembers, or when one attends, 
ete. We are only aware of the end-result, @ memory, not the 
process of memorizing, a judgment, an insight into the truth of 
a sequence of propositions that we term reasoning, an increase 
of clearness when something passes from the background of con- 
sciousness to the focus point in the act of attention. 

Mental Products.—Mental products are the elements of ¢on- 
sciousness par excellence, the elements that have been classified 
in most attempts to analyze our states of mind. It is to the men- 
tal product that James refers when he likens consciousness to 
a Stream. They constitute, too, those subconscious mental ele- 


CLASSIFICATION OF MENTAL PROCESSES 45 


ments that he spoke of as the fringe of consciousness, and they 
also constitute the elements of mental life, if any such there are, 
that make up the fabric of the unconscious. There are no men- 
tal products before the operation of the machinery of the mind. 
What is native to the mind, what is inborn and not made, is the 
mechanism of the mental functions, the ability to see, to hear, 
to understand, to read, and to attend, etc. No mental product 
could be in the mind before the machinery is sufficiently devel- 
oped to fulfil its normal functions. 

Mental Dispositions——The mind at birth has been likened 
to a tabula rasa. As life proceeds the tablet of the mind com- 
mences to be filled with all sorts of writings. Whenever a mental 
function operates it not only produces a transitory glow like 
the flashing of a firefly in the night, but it leaves a trace that is 
more or less permanent on the psyche. These traces, the abiding 
resultant of the activity of the mental functions, constitute what 
we may term our mental dispositions. We might term these 
mental dispositions unconscious mental products to distinguish 
them from the conscious mental products, the states of aware- 
ness that make up the flow of consciousness. 

Classification of Mental Functions.—Theoretically, every 
mental product, as we have said, must have its corresponding 
mental function by means of which it comes into being. We 
might, therefore, classify our mental functions, just as we do 
our mental products. When, however, we come to analyze the 
mechanism of the mind, we find that while we know a great deal 
about the mental functions that produce our representative men- 
tal states, that is, sensations, ideas, judgments, reason, ete., we 
know very little about the mental functions that result in the 
affective elements of our mental life. On this account, in the 
schema that is to follow we shall make no attempt to include the 
affective mental functions but simply refer to those functions 
concerning which we have a considerable amount of information. 

There are three classes of mental functions, those that have 
- to do with (1) reception, (2) construction, and (3) conservation. 
The functions of reception are those by means of which knowledge 
is received into the mind. The chief functions of reception are 


AG THE ANALYSIS OF, MIND, 


attention and perception. Attention is conceived of here as 
truly a function by means of which a state of consciousness is 
brought from the background to the focus point of consciousness. 
According to Titchener, attention is not a function but a definite 
form of awareness, namely, sensory clearness. In the schema 
here outlined, attention is a mental function, its product is 
what Titchener terms clearness. Certainly there must be some 
mechanism by means of which what is in the background of 
consciousness is brought to the foreground. This mechanism, 
whatever it may be, we speak of as attention. 

Perception is the other receptive function. It may be defined 
as that mental function by which we interpret stimuli, or as 
that mental function by means of which incoming sensations are 
assimilated to appropriate images and pertinent categories of 
past experience. 

The second group of mental functions are those of construc- 
tion. Here we have association, judgment and reason. The at- 
tempt of Binet to identify perception, judgment and reasoning 
and explain them as forms of association can no longer be re- 
garded as tenable since Lindworsky’s? brilliant analysis of the 
process of reasoning. 

Light may recall by association red, but that is a very differ- 
ent thing from the statement which corresponds to the judgment 
that the light is red, different because of its objective reference 
and the actual assent of the mind to the validity of the reference. 
It is this objective reference and inner assent based upon insight 
which differentiates judgement from mere association. Two truths 
may be in the mind some time before one sees the relation between 
them. Once this relationship is perceived, there may dawn upon 
the mind the truth of a third principle different from the others, 
but evidently implicitly contained in them. This insight into the 
fact that because this truth is so and the second truth is so, there- 
fore, a third must be so, is something different from a mere judg- 
ment or the association of one idea with another. It is a percep- 
tion of dependence, an insight into etiology, which cannot be 


* Das schlussfolgernde Denken, Freiburg, 1916, pp. xvi and 454; Hrgdn- 
gungsheft zu den Stimmen der Zeit II Reihe Forschungen, I, Heft. 


CLASSIFICATION OF MENTAL PROCESSES AT 


identified with the mere objective reference with assent that 
characterizes judgment. 

The third group of mental functions has to do with the con- 
servation of the data of perception. This function may be broadly 
designated as memory. Just as perception is both sensory and 
intellectual so also memory, which is the conservation of the 
data of perception, is sensory and intellectual. One may have 
an image of the dome of the capitol or Washington monument 
and may remember that both the dome and the monument are 
white, and that both at times are illuminated at night; one may 
also recall the steps in the demonstration of a proposition in 
geometry. The insight into relationships which facilitates the 
memorizing of geometrical sequences is quite a different thing 
- from the rising before the mind of visual images. It is impossible 
to learn geometry by heart; it is fairly easy for some to learn it 
by insight into relations. We have, therefore, both a sensory and 
an intellectual memory. But, you may ask, why is memory 
brought in as among the mental functions? How is the mental 
function of conservation to be distinguished from the traces which 
are classified under mental dispositions? Memory may be re- 
garded from two points of view. In the first place it may be 
looked upon as a trace, and if one looks upon it in this way, 
it belongs to the group of mental dispositions. It may, however, 
be looked upon from a very different point of view. In order that 
one may actually recall, the trace must be activated. It must not 
remain an unconscious affair in the brain or in the psyche but a 
memory must result, an image must come before the mind, a 
relationship must be perceived. Conceived of in this way, mem- 
ory is a function which leads to the product, the individual mem- 
ory, just as the process of sensation leads to its product, a par- 
ticular sensation. 

Classification of Mental Products.—The foundation of the 
dual classification of mental products is found in the fact that 
the mind receives impressions and reacts to the impressions that 
. it receives. The impressions received are the representative or 
cognitive elements. The reactions to these impressions are the 
affective or appetitive elements of our mental life. The mental 


48 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND 


products of reception may be conceived as actions of the mind 
in the presence of stimuli. They are representative in character, . 
they picture to us the world outside. These pictures are of two 
kinds corresponding to the two kinds of perception, 7.e., sensory 
and intellectual. The sensory representative mental states may 
be subdivided into external and internal. The external are sen- 
sations, the internal are our images, the phantasmata of scholas- 
tic philosophy. The intellectual representations are our abstract 
ideas, different from the images and sensations themselves. The 
mind not only receives impressions from without but reacts 
to these impressions in characteristic ways. These reactions of 
the mind to the stimuli that it receives are the elements of our 
affective mental life. It is possible for us to react to impressions 
in two ways: 

(a) We may welcome them, choose them, accept them or 
reject them, draw our mind away from them or open it to the 
fulness of perception. These voluntary reactions of the mind 
are our acts of will. 

(b) Not all reactions of the mind are voluntary. Some are 
necessary. Thus, some things please us whether we will or not. 
Others displease us without any design on our part. Several 
forms of necessary reactions may be distinguished. We may 
mention here reflex action. It is not, strictly speaking, @ con- 
scious process. It belongs not to psychology but to physiology. 
Nevertheless, the school of Behaviorism maintains that conscious 
phenomena are to be interpreted in terms of reflex action. And 
so in the schema of the elements of our mental life, reflex action 
may be mentioned here, as it were, in parentheses. It is nothing 
more than a mechanically aroused response of a muscle or gland 
to the stimulus with which it is organically associated, as, for 
instance, when the pupil of the eye contracts to light. The neces- 
sary reactions of our mind are of two kinds: 

1. The affective reactions in the stricter sense. When a per- 
ception arouses our mind to activity, it is frequently pleasant 
or unpleasant. This peculiar way in which we are affected by 
the impression so that we like it or dislike it, is termed by psy- 
chologists a feeling. It is still a mooted point in psychology just 


CLASSIFICATION OF MENTAL PROCESSES 49 


how many elementary feelings there are. It is generally conceded 
that feelings are elements of our mental life.» Whenever an affec- 
tive reaction of this kind is violent, it embraces much more than 
mere pleasantness or unpleasantness. It involves deep intellec- 
tual insights into the present situation, a tremendous resonance 
throughout the whole body, all of which is united into one com- 
plex, termed emotion. 

2. The second group of reactions of consciousness may be 
termed conative. Every mental ability, every function has a 
native tendency to set itself in action. We have not only eyes 
but a curiosity to look, not only ears but a craving to hear, not 
only touch but a tendency to fondle. Thus, every ability that 
we have creates a tendency within us to exercise it. Whenever 
we are in the presence of an opportunity of exercising any one of 
our mental abilities or mental functions, we perceive this native 
tendency. The awareness of this tendency to exercise one of our 
abilities or mental functions is what we term an impulse. There 
are just as many impulses as there are abilities. The term instinct 
is nothing more or less than a name in popular usage given to a 
group of impulses. Thus, the instinct of self-preservation is the 
name describing the tendency of a human being to make use of 
all his abilities, whatever they may be, to help him out of danger. 
By desire we may designate the craving that we experience to 
exercise abilities when an opportunity for doing so is not present. 
Desires, therefore, may be classified in the same way as impulses 
and they are measured by the number of human abilities. 

Mental Dispositions.—Mental dispositions may be _ sub- 
divided into general and special. An arbitrary division may be 
made of the general into temperament and character, a distinction 
similar to that which Kant made between what he spoke of as the 
sensory and intellectual character. Thus, he said that at birth 
an individual is endowed with a group of tendencies and impulses 
so that the child seeks what he wants without regard to any ideal 
of conduct or any principle whatsoever. As time goes on, how- 
ever, the mind comes under the influence of the ideals of conduct 
that Kant spoke of as the ‘‘ Categorical Imperative.’’ Then the 
original native dispositions are modified and made to conform 


50 THE ANALYSIS OF MIND 


to an ideal. This distinction put forth in the writings of Kant 
is not original with«this German philosopher, it goes back to St. 
Paul himself, who complained that ‘‘ I do not that good which I 
will; but the evil which I hate, that I do.’’ (Rom. vii: 15.) 


attention 
reception ! sensory 
perception 
_ (intellectual 
association 
MORE construction ; Judgment 
reason 
sensory 
conservation 4. 
intellectual 
external—sensations 
GG atl Aa Sensory \ internal—images 
consciousness (phantasms) 
intellectual—abstract idea 
Mental 
HKlements } products 
of Mind ( (reflex action) 
feeling 
necessary | affective 
appetitive, emotion 
reactions of . 
consciousness impulse 
conative ; desire 
(instinct) 
Fabian of will 
temperament (native) 
general character (acquired, result of voluntary 
action) 
Mental ai 
dispositions COC ae 


special ; habits 4 indifferent 


bad—vices 


CLASSIFICATION OF MENTAL PROCESSES 51 


We may designate the primitive, unformed native dispositions 
of a child as temperament. Temperament modified by training 
and the implantation of ideals of conduct results in something 
which may be externally very different from its beginning. It 
is the character of the individual. 

Besides these general dispositions of the mind there are spe- 
cial ones, habits, which are formed and facilitate the performance 
of numerous activities. These habits, from the ethical, but not 
psychological point of view, may be classified as good, bad or 
indifferent. Bad habits are vices and good habits are virtues. 

Of such elements then is the stream of our mental life com- 
posed. In dynamic psychology we consider only one group of 
_ these elements, the reactions of consciousness. It is a group, 
however, that is most necessary to be comprehended in order to 
understand ourselves and others to develop our lives so that it 
will be possible to come to a satisfactory solution of the eternally 
persistent riddle of existence. 





PART II 


STIMULUS AND RESPONSE AND 
HUMAN BEHAVIOR 


i nel 
 MOstE HLAG 





CHAPTER I 
REFLEX ACTION 


1. Use of the Term “ Reflex Action.”—The term ‘‘reflex 
action’’ has been used to designate a variety of responses of living 
things to stimulation. Thus, when one startles at a loud sound, the 
muscular contractions of the body that seem to be produced by 
the noise are reflex in character. When the eye is suddenly illu- 
minated by a bright light and the pupil becomes smaller, the 
contraction of the iris, which results, is a typical reflex action. 
- When an irritation in the respiratory tract leads to an explosive 
cough, or a stimulation of the nasal mucous membrane brings 
forth an expulsive sneeze, the muscular contractions and adjust- 
ments that these acts involve are reflex actions. When one walks, 
or performs some work of skill with his hands, stimuli are con- 
tinually bombarding the central nervous system from skin, mus- 
eles, and tendons reflexly determining finer adjustments of the 
muscles in action. This interplay of stimulus and response, 
continuous and ever varying, may be regarded as a series of 
reflex actions. 

The varied movements of unicellular organisms to and away 
from the stimuli that act upon them have also been termed reflex 
actions. Thus, when Euglena viridis approaches a darkened area 
and suddenly turns around and passes back into the light, the 
response of this organism has been regarded by some as a reflex 
action. Though one may extend the use of terms for good and 
sufficient reason it would be well in this case to keep before our 
mind a fundamental difference between a single, smooth muscle 
cell in the iris and a free swimming, unicellular Huglena viridis. 
The Euglena is an organism complete in itself. The muscle cell 
_ is only a part and a very diminutive part of an organism. Both 
contract, but there may be a profound difference in the source 
and control of the contraction—a difference which may be so 

55 


56 STIMULUS AND RESPONSE 


great as to make it desirable to consider the two phenomena apart 
and perhaps also to designate them by different names. 

The instinctive reactions of animals to the problems of their 
environment are frequently regarded by students of animal 
behavior as chains of reflex actions. It is not, however, proved 
beyond all doubt that stimulus and response in instinctive be- 
havior involves nothing more than obtains in the simple mechan- 
ism of the reflex multiplied 1 times by itself. There may be some- 
where in the chain of events a certain element of organic control 
which is not present in the simple reflex are. 

The complex reactions of human beings to the difficulties and 
problems of life are also spoken of by some as their ‘‘reactions”’ 
to the situation in which they find themselves involved. It should, 
however, be recognized clearly and candidly that when such re- 
sponses are termed ‘‘ reactions ’’ the term is not used equivoeally, 
but only analogously with ‘‘ reflex actions.’’ For here we know 
by our own experience that between the presentation of the prob- 
lem and its final solution by a given course of action there is 
interpolated a great deal of mental process which does not belong 
to the reflex are. To identify such human responses with reflex 
action or concatenated reflex action serves only to confuse prob- 
lems which must be distinguished and given separate treatment 
and specific terms. 

In order to clearly understand the problem of stimulus and 
response it is best for us to analyze it, pick out a type of relation 
between the two phenomena that we shall regard as a typical 
reflex action, and then discuss other related modes of behavior. 
And when we do so let us bear in mind that we are studying 
reflex action not as a physiologist might do, but from the psy- 
chological point of view in order to understand clearly the nature 
of a reflex action; and so be better able to judge whether or not 
reflex action is a unit which when multiplied n times by itself 
is capable of explaining all human behavior. 

2. Typical Examples of Reflex Action.—When one strikes 
the tendon of the quadriceps femoris just above its insertion into 
the head of the t7bia the muscle contracts, giving rise to the phe- 
nomenon familiarly known as the knee-jerk. Here we have a 








EEG 





mm 


. 
\ 
y 








TH 


\\ 


ZY 


\ 








SS 


ke 


AN 


























Fig. 1.—DIAGRAM OF A SIMPLE SPINAL REFLEX. 


In a simple spinal reflex the impulse is taken up by the ‘“‘receptor,’’ that is, the nerve 
endings of a sensory area, e.g., the touch corpuscles of the skin. It is transmitted by 
sensory nerve fibres to their cells of origin, the bipolar cells (B) in the ganglia (SG) of the 
posterior roots of the spinal cord. Fibres pass from these bipolar cells to the spinal cord, 
where they divide into shorter descending and longer ascending branches. These branches 
give off terminal fibres, which end around cells in the posterior horns (PH) of the gray 
matter in the spinal cord, or which pass directly to the motor cells in the anterior horns 
(AH). Outgoing fibres from these motor cells pass directly to the ‘‘effector,’’ e.g., a muscle, 
which responds by a ‘‘reflex’’ contraction to the stimulus. 





REFLEX ACTION 57 


sensory stimulus, the transmission of this stimulus to the spinal 
cord,! and in mechanical sequence the contractions of a definite 
croup of muscles without any effort on the part of the will. Simi- 
larly if one draws a pin across the abdomen the abdominal muscles 
contract. If one stimulates by rubbing or pinching the skin of 
the neck, the pupil dilates. If one throws a light into the eye, 
its pupil contracts. In the knee-jerk, the abdominal reflexes, and 
the dilatation of the pupil, the sensory impulse passes over into a 
motor response in the spinal cord ; in the reaction of pupillary con- 
traction, the centre is situated in the mid-brain. 

3. Analysis of Reflex Action.—If we attempt to pick out the 
ehief characteristics of the phenomena under consideration we 
see that: 

I. Reflexes are reactions, not of the organism as a whole, but 
of a mechanism possessed by an organism. 

u. They are localized in and dependent upon the integrity 
of a series of anatomical units: (a) The sensory receptor, (b) the 
neural path, (c) the muscle of response. If any one of these ele- 
ments is not functioning the reaction does not take place. If 
all these elements are intact, contractions take place mechanically 
and without delay once the stimulus is given. They are not neces- 
sarily dependent on the life of the organism as a whole. Thus, 
the frog, whose muscles and nervous system are less dependent 
on the circulation of the blood than those of warm-blooded ani- 
mals, may be beheaded and disemboweled and reflexes still ob- 
tained from the neuromuscular mechanism that remains. 

m1. They are initiated by stimuli that come from without and 
not by vague internal conditions of the organism. These internal 
conditions may modify reflexes, but they do not initiate them. 

Iv. They are not dependent on the stimuli involved becom- 
ing conscious. Reflexes may be obtained from those who are asleep 
or unconscious. 

*Some deny that the stimulus is transmitted to the cord and say the 
phenomenon is due to a direct mechanical excitation of the muscle. They 
_ therefore decline to regard it as a reflex. The best evidence is, however, 


on the other side and the knee-jerk will serve very well as an example of 
a spinal reflex. (See Nagel, Handbuch der Physiologie, IV, p. 284.) 


5 


58 STIMULUS AND RESPONSE 


v. They are not dependent on the will for their initiation but 
solely on the stimulus. 

vi. They are inherited mechanisms and not habits developed 
by experience. Thus all normal members of a given species 
possess the same set of reflexes. 

vu. They can exist in the strict sense only in animals with 
a central nervous system. 

4. The Forms of Reflex Action.—Not all reflex actions have 
as their end-result a movement. Acid introduced into the mouth 
produces a flow of saliva; increase in temperature of the air 
around the body stimulates perspiration. We thus have secre- 
tory reflexes as well as motor. Motor reflexes are of two kinds 
according as they involve striated muscle over which the will has 
control, or non-striated muscle which it cannot directly influence. 
The knee-jerk would be an example of the former, the pupillary 
reflex of the latter. Besides the reflexes resulting in a movement 
we have others that stop a movement or keep one from taking 
place. The most familiar example of this is the inhibition of a 
sneeze by rubbing the nose. Electric stimulation of the vagus 
nerve slows the heart. The mechanical stimulation of the vagus 
terminations in the lungs at the end of inspiration possibly has 
something to do with inhibiting the contraction of the diaphragm 
and allowing expiration to take place. These inhibitory reflexes 
constitute a very important set of mechanisms. One might also dis- 
tinguish reflexes as normal and pathological, thus the normal 
result of stimulating the external region of the sole of the foot 
is a flexion of the toes; but when there has been an injury of 
the motor cells in the brain or their fibres in the cord—that is 
to say, an involvement of the pyramidal tract—stimulation of this 
region leads to an extension of the big toe and not a flexion. 

5. The Neurological Mechanism of the Pupillary Reflex.—It 
is maintained by some that instincts and reflex actions are really 
one and the same thing, the difference being, that a reflex action 
is a mere element, a single link, and the instinct a combination 
of these elements or a chain of reflexes. Others maintain that 
all thought is to be identified with some kind of reflex action. 
This being the case, it may be worthwhile to examine a fairly 


Sf 
_SH;w7TTwTv"—-. 
—————$————— 














(KA 
\ 


Fie. 2.—NEURAL PATHWAY OF THE PUPILLARY LIGHT REFLEX. 
A, retina; CG, ciliary ganglion; X, optic chiasm; P, pineal body; EG, external genicu- 
late body; IG, internal geniculate body; SC, superior colliculus; IC, inferior colliculus; 
III, nuclei of oculomotor nerve; IV, fourth ventricle; V, visual centre. For the sake of 


orientation the cerebrum is shown in outline and the position of the lateral ventricles 
indicated by shading. 


x pM): 5 
pentis (ah 


ry: 





REFLEX ACTION | 59 


complicated reflex in detail so that we may be better able to judge 
whether reflex action involving a series of neurons may serve 
for the basis of our explanation of instincts and the thought proe- 
esses. For this purpose we may examine minutely the mechanism 
of the light reflex of the pupil. The receptor of this reflex is the 
retina of the eye, and the effector, the muscles of the iris. The iris 
has two sets of muscles, one of which radiates like the spokes of a 
wheel and the other constitutes a series of concentric bands. When 
the radiating fibres contract they dilate the pupil. When the con- 
centric bands contract they narrow the pupil. When the rays 
of light fall upon the eye they illumine the iris before they strike 
the retina. This illumination apparently has no direct and im- 
mediate effect on the muscles of the iris, for when the optic nerves 
are destroyed by tumor growth or trauma, light produces no 
change in the size of the pupil. In the retina, a region that 
extends about three millimetres beyond the point of clearest 
vision, is the receptor of the light reflex.? 

Since in the point of clearest vision we have only cones, it 
has been suggested that the cones are receptors for the light 
reflex. This supposition receives some confirmation from the fact 
that the contraction of the iris is a function, not of the absolute 
intensity of the light, but of the state of adaptation of the eye. 
Now it is known that the cones vary in length with the degree of 
the illumination to which they are subjected. The extent to which 
the iris contracts varies also with the intensity of the illumination. 
It is possible that this coincidence may be in some manner a 
causal connection so that the cones are the receptors for the 
light reflex in the eye. 

From the retina the path of this reflex is through the optic 
nerves. It is probable that the fibres which mediate vision and 
those which mediate the light reflex are different. At all events, 
there are at least two types of fibres in the optic nerve. It is 
supposed that one of these is the path of the light reflex. When. 
these fibres come to the optic chiasm most of them cross and pass 
- to the superior colliculus and external geniculate body of the op- 


2 Hess, “ Untersuchungen uber die Ausdehnung des pupillomotorisch 
wirksamen Bezirkes der Netgzhant,” Arch. f. Augenheilk, 1907, LVIL. 


60 STIMULUS AND RESPONSE 


posite side. The rest pass to the symmetrical ganglia of the same 
side. In these ganglia they have connections with the medulla 
oblongata and meet also centrifugal fibres from the cortical area — 
of vision. From each superior colliculus there proceed two sets 
of fibres, one going to the oculomotor nucleus of the same side, 
the other to the oculomotor nucleus of the opposite side. We 
thus have a double crossing, one in the afferent and the other in 
the efferent path. The result of which is that stimulation of one 
eye affects the iris of both eyes, but more strongly the iris of the 
side stimulated. From this neural mechanism we understand at 
once the direct? and consensual* light reflex. It is known also 
that the iris dilates under stress of emotion, for example, fear; 
with any act of attention involving mental work such as addition, 
multiplication, ete. It is possible that this dilation is at times 
due to a relaxation of the constrictor and not to a contraction 
of the dilator of the iris. In this case we can understand the 
function (relaxation of tonus) of the centrifugal fibres to the 
superior colliculi. The iris also contracts when the eyes converge 
in looking at a near body. The neural pathway for this reflex of 
accommodation probably involves some portions of the pathway 
just outlined. The mechanisms for the two reflexes cannot, how- 
ever, be identical because in certain pathological conditions the 
light reflex is lost while the accommodation reflex is retained 
(Argyll-Robertson pupil). The exact pathway for the accommo- 
dation reaction is not so well known as that of the light reflex. 

There is another pathway which has to do with the dilatation 
of the pupil. The fibres of this pathway pass down the pyramidal 
tract of the spinal cord leaving it in the region of the eighth 
cervical and first and second dorsal segments. They pass thence to 
first thoracic ganglion, thence upwards to the inferior cervical 
ganglion and thence still further to the superior cervical. Here 
these fibres probably terminate and a new neuron continues the 
course of the reflex. A little beyond the superior cervical gang- 
lion, separating themselves from the fibres that go to form the 
earotid plexus, they pass to the gasserian ganglion. Thence they 


* Contraction of the pupil due to light thrown on the same eye. 
* Contraction of the pupil due to light thrown on the opposite eye. 


REFLEX ACTION 61 


continue with the first branch of the trigeminal nerve and pass 
ultimately by the long ciliary nerves to the eye. It is this path- 
way which actively dilates the pupil. It has a connection in the 
cord with the sensory nerves from the skin of the neck, the 
stimulation of which causes the pupil to dilate. In this outline 
we have mentioned only the anatomical mechanism which is 
nothing more than a shell in which very complex physiological 
processes take place. Thus some drugs affect in a physiological 
manner the contractor, others the dilator muscle of the iris. What 
these physiological processes are is practically unknown to us. 

The time consumed in the passage of the stimulus of lght 
from the retina to the ganglionic centres and out again to the 
muscle of the iris is about 0.380 to 0.50 second. This is a relatively 
long reflex due possibly to the complicated pathway and also to 
the character of the smooth muscle of the effector. The time of 
the knee-jerk is only one-tenth of this, that is to say, 0.040 second. 

Other reflexes which we shall consider later under the name 
of ‘‘cortical reflexes,’’ involve an even more complicated path 
than the pupillary reflex. But no matter how intimate our knowl- 
edge of the path of a reflex action this alone does not enable us 
to understand what takes place in the centre controlling the reflex. 
If this knowledge of the path does not clear up the problem of 
the central phenomena even in the reflex, we cannot expect to 
throw much light on the inner side of human behavior by referring 
to a-, B- and y-ares, particularly when so little is known about 
the higher ares of the cortical reflexes. But were the pathways 
known exactly this knowledge would not explain the motives of 
an individual’s conduct. 

6. Control of Reflexes.—It is characteristic of reflexes that 
we have over them no immediate voluntary control. Our indirect 
control is meagre and imperfect. An attempt to exert this con- 
trol may be made along the following lines: 

(1) Relaxation of the effector. If a muscle is sufficiently re- 
laxed it does not give a reflex contraction. Thus, if the leg is 
straight, the quadriceps femoris tendon is so lax that a reflex ean- 
not be obtained by tapping it. In this way it would be possible 
indirectly to prevent the reflex taking place even when the stimu- 


62 STIMULUS AND RESPONSE 


lus is given. A similar method can be made use of to control an 
attack of hiccoughs. If one notes by a second hand the approxi- 
mate intervals of each hiccough and when the critical moment is 
expected attempts to relax the diaphragm, he can very soon bring 
these reflex spasms to an end. 

(11) Contraction of the effector. Tendon reflexes which are 
not strongly developed may easily be inhibited by a slight contrac- 
tion of the museles involved. Thus, in normal individuals it is 
usually impossible to obtain the biceps and triceps reflexes unless 
the muscles are relaxed. Anything above their normal tonus 
interferes with the reflex. 

(m1) Attention to the expected movement. Fixing our 
mind upon the movement of the reflex seems in some manner to 
interfere with it. Thus, it is much easier to obtain a reflex from 
another than from ourselves. In cases where the knee-jerk has 
almost disappeared it may be obtained by the so-called method 
of reinforcement. This is probably nothing more than a distrae- 
tion of the patient’s attention. He must close his eyes, hold 
his hands together and try to pull them apart. When a patient 
does this, a reflex which could not otherwise be obtained is often 
promptly elicited. 

(1v) Stimulation of another receptor. This was the first 
known method of inhibiting a reflex. It was pointed out in the 
eighteenth century that a sneeze may be prevented by rubbing 
the nose. Just what the mechanism of this inhibition is we do 
not know, but it is one of the indirect methods of controlling 
reflexes. A sneeze, however, is not one of the simple reflexes we 
have been here considering, but it belongs to the cortical reflexes 
we shall consider later. 

7. Origin of Reflex Actions.—When we look at the reflexes 
of any organism we are struck in general by their purposeful 
character. Thus, the eyelid reflex protects the orbit from injury. 
The light reflex of the pupil safeguards the retina from the effects 
of too great an illumination. Swallowing is a reflex absolutely 
essential to the life of the organism, and equally necessary are all 
the subsequent reflexes involved in earrying the food to the 
stomach and through the intestines with the flow of gastric juices, 
pancreatic secretions, ete. There are, however, some reflexes in 


REFLEX ACTION 63 


which we can see no utility. For example, the pathological 
Babinski, that is, the extension of the toe on stimulating the out- 
side of the sole of the foot. Some are tempted to attribute the 
acquisition of all these reflexes to a Darwinian process of natural 
selection. We cannot, however, imagine an animal existing in 
whom from the beginning they were all lacking. They are a part 
of life itself and are just as mysterious as living organisms. F‘ur- 
thermore, considerable doubt has been thrown by Mendelism on 
the inheritance of acquired characteristics. It is best, therefore, 
for us to face our ignorance on this problem rather than to 
indulge in idle speculations. We do not know how reflexes origi- 
nated. We cannot conceive of an organism existing without them. 
_ They come to the individual from the germ plasm itself. How the 
germ plasm originally arose nobody knows. 

Pawlow recently attempted to prove (Science, LVIII, 359- 
361) that conditioned reflexes (cf. fra, p. 68) may be inherited. 
Mice were trained to run to a feeding place at the sound of a 
bell. To learn this trick the first generation took 300 lessons, 
the second 100, the third 30, the fourth 10, the fifth 5. ‘‘I think 
it very probable,’’ he says, ‘‘that after some time a new genera- 
tion of mice will run to the feeding place on hearing the bell with 
no previous lesson.’’ These results, at their face value, suggest 
that habits acquired by parents may be transmitted to offspring. 
Pawlow did not exclude, perhaps, all sources of ambiguity in 
his experiments, e.g., selection. Are animals that result from 
generations of laboratory breeding a mentally selected group due 
to weeding out the less fit? Two independent pieces of research 
reported by MacDowell and by Vicari (Science, LIX, pp. 302-3) 
failed to find any evidence of the inheritance of training. There is 
as yet no good evidence that conditioned reflexes can be inherited. 

8. Cortical Reflexes.—Most of the early information about 
reflex action was obtained from experiments on frogs from which 
the cerebral hemispheres or the entire brain had been removed. 
Naturally, the reflexes originally known were those that could 
- be obtained from the spinal cord. The spinal cord, therefore, 
was looked upon as the centre par excellence for reflex action. It 
was not known that the brain had anything whatsoever to do with 
reflexes. Various attempts to stimulate the brain, as one stimu- 
lates nerves, were at first entirely fruitless. It seemed that the 


64 STIMULUS AND RESPONSE 


brain could be cut and burned without any immediate effects 
whatsoever. It was not until 1870 when Fritsch and Hitzig made. 
their historical experiments that it was realized that there are 
centres for movement in the cerebral cortex. Experiments since 
then, supported by clinical observation and pathological studies — 
of cortical injuries and brain tumors have shown that there are 
a number of so-called centres in the cortex. If a certain centre 
is injured, a definite movement cannot be executed. If other 
centres are destroyed, a peculiar type of blindness or deafness 
results. It thus became apparent that if the brain has sensory 
and motor centres, the cortex as well as the cord ean function 
in the reflex are. Thus, the cortical reflex came to take its place 
along with the spinal reflexes. 

As typical examples of cortical reflexes, one may mention 
sneezing and coughing. Unlike spinal or cerebrospinal reflexes 
above mentioned, the cortical reflex is characterized by the fact 
that consciousness and voluntary effort are more or less impor- 
tant factors. Thus, for instance, if one is unconscious he neither 
coughs nor sneezes, but his eyes still react to light, his tendon 
reflexes, etc., may still be obtained. It is necessary that the stimu- 
lus that initiates the cortical reflex should be perceived in order 
that it may be effective. It is customary to regard consciousness 
as connected with some kind of cortical activity. When, there- 
fore, we find a refiex which does not take place unless the stimu- 
lus is perceived, we have a right to differentiate it from the others 
and designate it as a cortical reflex. 

Sinee the days of Fritsch and Hitzig numerous experiments 
have been made on the brains of animals to discover what regions 
may be stimulated in order to produce the various activities which 
go to constitute the physiological functioning of the organism. 
It is thus possible to obtain by stimulating the proper regions 
the secretion of saliva, tears, the gastric juices, the retardation, 
deepening, or acceleration of respiration, changes in blood pres- 
sure, ete. More recently Bechterew has put forward the inter- 
esting view that the centres for movement and sensation are 
always intimately connected. There is no movement centre that 
is not closely associated with its sensory region, and vice versa 


REFLEX ACTION 65 


no sense organ that has not in the immediate vicinity of its eor- 
tical centre a region the stimulation of which produces the appro- 
priate movements of the sense organ. For example, the precentral 
gyrus is the motor region for the various members of the body. 
Immediately behind this is the postcentral gyrus with tactile 
centres for the organs involved in movement. This fact is one that 
is known and generally admitted by physiologists. Over and 
above this, Bechterew claims that he has found in the neighbor- 
hood of the cortical visual area a centre the stimulation of which 
produces eye movements, narrowing and dilation of the pupil, 
contraction and relaxation of the muscles of accommodation. In 
the vicinity of the auditory area, or more precisely, toward the 
posterior region of the fissure of Sylvius he has obtained move- 
ments of the ear, the eye, and the head. In the olfactory region 
he obtains contraction of the nostrils and movements of respira- 
tion. In the vicinity of the gustatory region, which he locates 
in the posterior region of the operculum, he find that stimula- 
tion produces salivary secretion. In the central region he obtains 
movements of the stomach, intestines, gastric, lactic, and sweat 
secretions.® 

On the basis of the fact that the sensory and motor centres: 
are intimately connected, Bechterew builds up the hypothesis 
that all thought, all psychic, and all mental phenomena are psy- 
chic reflexes, that is to say, reflexes that take place in the cere- 
bral cortex. When one looks for a demonstration of this identity, 
it is not forthcoming, and when one inquires a little more closely 
into what he means, we find that he has made no advance upon 
the old materialistic concept that the psychical is an epiphenom- 
enon of the physical. We have always known that there are 
afferent sensory processes and efferent motor ones. The great 
mystery has always been how the physical stimulus passes over 
into the mental state of the sensation. To tell us that sensory and 
motor centres are somewhat closer together in the cortex than 
has hitherto been supposed does not help to elucidate this mystery. 
, 5 See Bechterew’s interesting summary of the work of himself and his 
pupils, “La localisation des psycho-réflexes dans l’écorce cérébrale,” 
Scientia, 1916, XX, pp. 444-457. 


66 STIMULUS AND RESPONSE 


‘ 


9. Psychic Reflexes.—The term ‘‘ psychic reflexes ’’ which 
Bechterew employs is not new. It was used in 1882 by Charles 
Richet in his Physiologie des muscles et des nerfs.® 

Bonatelli claimed’ priority in the use of the term, referring 
to his work, La coscienza ed il meccanismo interiore, Padua, 1871. 

Richet pointed out*® that Griesinger used the term in 1846 
(Arch. fur physiol. Hetlkunde). In 1863 the Russian physiolo- 
gist, Sétchénoff, in his study entitled Reflexes of the Brain, put 
forward the theory that thought is a reflex action, saying that 
‘< thought is the first two-thirds of a cerebral reflex.’’® In the 
behaviorist school of the present day, it is usual to identify con- 
scious phenomena with a reflex of higher order. Thus, if the 
simple reflex be regarded as an a-are extending from sense organ 
to cord and out again to muscle or gland, the conscious phe- 
nomenon is a B-are passing from subcortical centre to cortex and 
thence outward by efferent channels.t° The psychic reflex, ac- 
cording to this school, is the conscious process. 

By way of criticism, one might suggest that the recognition 
of another arc is justifiable from the facts of cerebral histology 
and physiology. No sensory neuron passes directly to the cere- 
bral cortex. Between the skin and cortex, for example, there are 
relay stations in the medulla and thalamus. Thus several ares 
may be involved in the process by which a stimulus becomes 
conscious, 

It does not help us, however, to say that consciousness 7s the 
mth are. The nth are in its anatomy and physiology is as far 
removed from the characteristics of mental life as the first are. 
That the cortical are is more intimately connected with a stimulus 
becoming conscious appears likely from the general facts of cere- 
bral physiology, but not from its numerical order nor from the 

* See also: “ Les réflexes psychiques,” Revue Philosophique, 1888, XXV, 
pp. 225-237, 387-422, 500-528. 

* Revista Italiana di Filosofia, 1887, II, pp. 326-328. 

*“ Actions réflexes psychiques,” Bull. de la soc. de psychol. physiol., 
1887, III, pp. 54-55. 

* Vide V. Kostyleff, Le mécanisme cérébral de la pensée, p. 5. 


* Cf. E. P. Frost, “ Cannot Psychology Dispense with Consciousness? ” 
Psychol. Rev., 1914, XXI, pp. 204-211. 


REFLEX ACTION 67 


fact that when itis broken the stimulus does not become conscious. 
For the first are may be broken and the stimulus will never reach 
consciousness. To know in a vague way, but with positive cer- 
tainty, that two things are in some manner related does not 
justify one in identifying them. Father and son are related, 
but the father and son are not identical. Day and night are re- 
lated, but day and night are not identical. Cortical reflexes and 
conscious phenomena are related, but cortical reflexes and con- 
scious phenomena are not identical. If, therefore, by a psychic 
reflex is understood some kind of £-are or y-are, which is a mental 
state, one is justified in discarding the term until some evidence 
is brought forth that would justify its use. It is better to say 
_we do not know how consciousness is related to the nervous sys- 
tem than to make hasty and unwarranted generalizations. 

The term psychic reflexes, as used by Richet, included two 
groups of phenomena: 

(a) One group he termed reflexes of accommodation ; the typi- 
cal example that he gave of this group was the contraction of the 
ciliary muscle changing the curvature of the lens. This phe- 
nomenon depends, he says, on a consciousness of the stimulus— 
an appreciation of the distance of the object. 

(b) In the other group, he included the bodily resonance of 
the emotions, change in heart rate and respiration, blushing, etc. 

Though these latter phenomena take place independently of 
the will, it is best not to confound them with reflexes. <A reflex 
should follow mechanically upon the presentation of the stimulus 
and be caused by the stimulus. The bodily resonance of the 
emotion is caused, as we shall see, by the emotion and not by the 
stimulus. Its cause is much more complex than that of the 
reflex. In the interest of clarity, therefore, it is best not to 
designate these phenomena by a common name. 

The term psychic reflex seems, therefore, to be superfluous for 
when we analyze the phenomena to which it may be applied, we 
find it coextensive with the term cortical reflex. We have seen 
‘that this term applies to a certain class of reflex actions in which 
the stimulus must be perceived in order to be effective and over 
which the will has some control. A sneeze does not take place 


68 STIMULUS AND RESPONSE 


in one who is unconscious, a cough is consented to by the will. 
Psychic reflex, therefore, is synonymous with cortical reflex. 

The Conditioned Reflex.—The concept of the conditioned 
reflex had its origin in Pawlow’s experiments on the secretion of 
saliva in dogs. He found that saliva is not only secreted when 
food is placed in the mouth, but also when food is merely shown 
to the dog. Furthermore, the chemical character of the saliva 
varies with the food. Watery food produces a very slight flow 
of saliva, whereas meat will produce a flow of saliva rich in 
mucin, a digestive ferment. If a pebble is placed in the dog’s 
mouth, he moves it about a little and drops it out. The pebble 
causes no secretion of saliva. If sand, which is chemically identi- 
cal with the pebble, is put in a dog’s mouth, a flow of watery 
saliva is prompt and plentiful. If sand is shown to the dog, the 
same flow of a watery saliva results. It is, therefore, evident that 
not only sensations coming from the tongue and mucous mem- 
branes of the mouth cause a reflex secretion of saliva, but also 
sensations from the eye. If sounds are associated with the feed- 
ing of animals, even the ear will give rise to a reflex secretion of 
saliva. Whereas food placed in the mouth never fails to call 
forth a secretion except in conditions of fear, etc., the sight of 
food will only produce a secretion of saliva when a number of 
conditions are fulfilled. If, for instance, the dog is shown meat 
again and again but it is not given to him, the amount of saliva 
secreted diminishes with each presentation of the meat until 
finally no more saliva is secreted. 

Pawlow distinguished, therefore, between two types of reflex 
action: (1) The organic or unconditioned reflexes, those, namely, 
that take place promptly and immediately and constantly when- 
ever the appropriate end organ is stimulated ; and (2) the psychie 
or conditioned reflexes which take place only if a number of 
conditions are fulfilled. 

Bechterew extended Pawlow’s work of salivary secretion to 
the voluntary muscles and found that conditioned reflexes may be 





4 Psychische Erregung der Speicheldriisen. Ergebnisse der Physiologie, 
1904, III, Abt., 1, pp. 176-193. 


REFLEX ACTION 69 


obtained not only in salivary glands but also in the voluntary 
musculature. 

Kostyleff hailed this as demonstrating that ‘‘ acts generally 
considered as spontaneous and free can be associated with external 
stimuli and produced in the same manner as reflexes.’’!?_ 

He even went so far as to maintain that the reflexes studied 
by Pawlow and Bechterew are the essential elements of our men- 
tal images and ideas. 

Watson hailed the conditioned reflex as a long-desired method 
that could supplant introspection in phychology.** 

The school of Behaviorism suggested that all human behavior 
was nothing more than conditioned and unconditioned refiexes. 

Hamel" first measured the latent period of the conditioned re- 
flex and found it for human subjects to average between .200 and 
.300 of a second. He compared it with the time of a voluntary 
reaction which involved a discrimination between a bell and the 
sound of a falling hammer as a stimulus to react. He found that 
the latent times of the conditioned reflex and a choice reaction, 
dependent upon conscious discrimination, were about the same. 

Cason,* at Columbia University, repeated Hamel’s work, 
using the eyelid reaction rather than a movement of the arm. He 
found that the voluntary reaction was in general longer than 
the conditioned reflex, though in one case it was practically the 
same or even a little quicker. He looked upon the difference in 
time as proving an essential difference between a voluntary re- 
action and a conditioned reflex. It is to be noted, however, that 
all his conditioned refiex reaction times are close to .200 of a 
second and perfectly capable, as far as time limit is concerned, 
of being merely voluntary reactions. It is possible too that his 
instructions to his subjects—‘ Listen attentively for the sound 
of the stimulus’’—produced in his subjects the attitude of the 
2 Le mécanisme cérébral de la pensée, Paris, 1914, p. 15. 

%<The Place of the Conditioned Reflex in Psychology,” Psychol. Rev., 
1916, XXIII, pp. 89-116. 

144“ The Conditioned Reflex,” Catholic University of America Studies 


in Psychology, Psychol. Monographs, Vol. 27, No. 1. 
% Journal of Exp. Psychol., 1922. 


oe 


70 STIMULUS AND RESPONSE 


sensory reaction. We know that attention to the stimulus in a 
reaction-time experiment gives a longer reaction than attention 
to the movement. Any instructions, which accentuate the stimu- 
lus rather than the movement, have a tendency to lengthen the 
reaction. Cason’s results, therefore, with the eyelid reaction do 
not demonstrate that the so-called conditioned reflex is anything 
more than a voluntary reaction dependent upon consciousness. 

Watson has laid great stress upon the fact that a conditioned 
reaction may be obtained with muscles not subject to voluntary 
control, like those in the iris. Thus, the pupillary reaction ap- 
pears to afford an opportunity of obtaining a conditioned reflex 
which cannot be the product of conscious and voluntary factors 
but must be a true reflex movement. 

Cason experimented with the pupillary reaction and found 
that he could condition a reflex either to dilatation or contraction 
of the pupil. His experiments, however, departed somewhat 
from the ordinary procedure. For instance, a light was thrown 
on the pupil and while the pupil was contracting, a bell was 
sounded. Under such conditions he found that contraction of 
the pupil to the light while the bell was sounding was greater on 
the average than a contraction due to the light alone. After the 
subject had been subjected to 400 experiments, in which the 
bell was sounded and the light turned on, the difference was still 
more marked, when he compared the average to light alone with 
that to light plus bell. It is possible, however, that repetition 
has here accentuated the normal reflex and the difference is ac- 
counted for also, in part, by an overflow of energy of the sound 
stimulus that accentuates the activity of a mechanism already 
in operation. 

A pupillary reaction, furthermore, in spite of its involuntary 
character, is nevertheless indirectly subject to voluntary control. 
Kvery act of attention dilates the pupil. Every emotion does 
the same. Looking at a far point dilates it; looking at a near 
point or wrinkling the forehead** contracts it. It is very likely 


6 Of, E. Schlesinger, “ Pupillen Verengerung durch willkiirliche Muskel- 
bewegung,” Deutsch med. Woch., xxxvii, pp. 1748-49. 


REFLEX ACTION fl 


that, as Hamel suggested, many of the experiments that were 
supposed to demonstrate conditioned pupillary reactions merely 
manifested the effect of apprehension on the size of the pupil. It 
has not yet been clearly demonstrated that the so-called econ- 
ditioned reflex is in any sense of the word a reflex action. 

Pawlow’s experiments with the dog do not necessitate a 
mechanical explanation. The disappearance of the secretion of 
saliva when meat is shown to a dog repeatedly without giving 
it to him bears an easy explanation in mental terms. The psychic 
salivary reflex is dependent on the immediate expectation of 
food. When it is found that one may see food and not obtain 
it, expectation dwindles and with the dwindling of the expecta- 
tion the salivary secretion disappears. Pawlow, however, con- 
ceives of it as being due to a fatigue of the nervous system. He 
thus explains it: 

‘‘What is the physiological explanation to the rapid and con- 
stant disappearance of the relative reflex’ by the repetition of 
the experiment and its rapid recuperation under certain cireum- 
stances? Certain facts seem to show that this phenomenon 
belongs to the category of the facts of exhaustion. First, the rela- 
tive reflex disappears and at the end of a certain interval reap- 
pears spontaneously. In the second place, the repetition being 
made with a more rapid rhythm, the relative reflex disappears 
more quickly than with a slow rhythm. This explanation squares 
well with the opinion generally admitted as to the great fatig- 
ability of the superior centres for monotonous and repeated exci- 
tations. The fact of the reéstablishment of the relative reflex after 
a flow of saliva brought on by an essential reflex, or even by 
another relative reflex sufficiently intense, can be explained in 
this fashion, that in spite of a certain degree of fatigue of the 
higher nervous centre, its excitation penetrates once more to the 
inferior salivary centre just as soon as the paths are opened by 

Tn this article Pawlow does not use the term “ conditioned reflex,” but 
speaks of relative reflex instead. In the article published a few months 


later in the Ergebnisse der Physiologie (1904, III, Abt., 1, pp. 176-193), 
he introduces the term “ conditioned reflex.” 


72 STIMULUS AND RESPONSE 


means of a recent and intense excitation of this latter inferior 
centre.’’ 18 

Such an explanation is necessary only if we assume that ani- 
mals are mere automata, not having anything akin to conscious- 
ness. Everything could be easily explained psychologically by 
expectation or loss of expectation of something good or bad being 
put in the mouth. The conditioned reflex, instead of banishing 
introspection and explaining consciousness in voluntary action, 
itself demands an explanation. 

* Pawlow, J., “Sur la sécrétion psychique des glands salivaires,” 
Archives Internationales de Physiologie, I, 1904, pp. 119-135. 


CHAPTER II 
REFLEX ACTION AND REACTION-TIME EXPERIMENTS 


REFLEX action bears a certain resemblance to the experiments 
on reaction time which have been so carefully studied in our 
pychological laboratories. Reaction time is the interval that 
elapses between the appearance of a stimulus and the observer’s 
response by a prearranged movement which he endeavors to make 
at the very instant of observation. 

The Personal Equation.—Psychological interest in this in- 
terval was preceded by the observations and researches of the 
astronomers. When the astronomer, in his observatory, wished 
to record the moment of transit of a star, he used to start counting 
the strokes of a pendulum just before the expected interval and 
watch for the moment in which the star passed the cross-hairs 
in his telescope. In 1795 Maskelyne, the Royal Astronomer of 
the Greenwich Observatory, discharged his assistant, Kinnebrook, 
for what Maskelyne thought was inaccuracy in his observations, 
which were registered from 0.5 to 0.8 second too late. He reported 
this fact in the Greenwich Astronomical Observations.t In 
1816, Lindenaid writing out the history of the Greenwich Obser- 
vatory in the Zeitschrift fiir Astronome referred to this incident. 
It attracted the attention of the celebrated German astronomer, 
Bessel, who undertook a careful investigation of the difference 
in the times of stellar transits as measured by various observers. 
This difference was referred to as the ‘‘ personal difference,’’ or 
the ** personal equation.’’ All the early investigators dealt with 
the relative, not the absolute personal equation. That is to say, 
they determined how much one observer differed from another ; 
but how far each missed the true time of transit remained entirely 
unknown. It was not until the American astronomers of the 
Coast Survey invented the chronographie method of recording 
- electrically the time of transit that it became possible to measure 


*TIT, 1795, 319, 339, Fide Sanford. Am. J. Psychol., Vols. I and II. 
6 73 


74 STIMULUS AND RESPONSE 


the absolute personal equation. This was done by Professor 
Mitchel in 1856? by the use of an apparatus in which an arti- 


ficial star recorded its actual transit electrically and the observer | 


his observation of its passage in the same manner. He found 
the absolute personal equation amounted to something over a 
tenth of a second. 

The problem of the absolute personal equation was taken up 
by psychologists under the name of reaction time. It was 
analyzed by them into several components, (a) the inertia of the 
peripheral sense organ, ?%.e., the time taken for the stimulus to 
act upon the organ of sense and transmit its action to the con- 
ducting nerve; (b) the time of conduction in the afferent nerve, 
2.€., nerve from sense organ to brain; (c) the inertia of the cerebral 
centre, 7.e., the time taken to receive the stimulus and discharge 
it into the efferent nerve; (d) the time of conduction in the effer- 
ent nerve, t.e., the nerve from the brain to the muscle; (e) the 
inertia of the organ of response, 7.e., the time requisite for the 
development of a muscular contraction that will operate the re- 
cording apparatus. 

Muscular and Sensorial Reactions.—It was soon noticed that 
reaction time varied with the subject or the observer. With some 
it approximated a tenth of a second, with others it was a fifth 
of asecond or longer. This difference was pointed out by Ludwig 
Lange in 1888. The shorter type of reaction was termed muscu- 
lar, the longer sensorial. 

Lange looked upon the series of events in a reaction-time 
experiment as a cerebral reflex which differs from an ordinary 
reflex because a preceding act of the will is necessary to clear the 
path for the stimulus that it may pass to the muscle of contraction. 
Lange attributed the difference in time between the two types of 
reaction to the involvement of two different centres. The sensory 
reaction, according to him, had its centre in the cortex-—the 
muscular reaction in a subcortical centre. He suggested that 
the cerebellum might be the subcortical centre involved. Wundt 


? Journal of The Franklin Institute, 1858, 66, 349. Fide Sanford. 
5 Philosophische Studien, IV. 


ee ee ee ee — 


REACTION-TIME EXPERIMENTS 15 


thought, on the contrary, that the two centres were both in 
the cortex. 

Some evidence on this point can be obtained by instructing 
the subject to make the movement of response as quickly as pos- 
sible, and by measuring the speed of this movement (a) in a 
sensorial reaction, (b) in a muscular reaction, and (c) in a volun- 
tary movement initiated at will and not in response to a stimulus. 
When one does this it is found that the speed of movement is the 
same in all three cases within the limits of the probable error.‘ 
Insofar as one can assume that the maximum effort of cortical 
and subcortical centres would discharge the ganglion cells in 
the anterior horn of the spinal cord with different intensities, 
insofar is the above fact evidence that the cerebral centres in 
muscular reaction are not so widely separated as cortex and sub- 
cortical ganglia. 

The probable source of the variation in time between sensorial 
and muscular reaction is, as Wundt suggested, a difference in the 
distribution of the attention. When one is waiting to react, a 
motor discharge is prepared and at the same time inhibited from 
immediate execution. Attention may be concentrated on the 
expected stimulus or on the intended movement—if on the stimu- 
lus, the inhibitory process is at a maximum; if on the movement, 
it is at a minimum and so disappears more quickly with a conse- 
quent shortening of the reaction time. 

Cortical Reflex and Reaction-time Experiments.—There are 
- eertain points of resemblance between cortical reflexes and the 
reaction-time experiments. Thus, in both there is a voluntary 
element. In a sneeze, for instance, the final expulsive movement 
comes, as a rule, with the consent of the will. That it should take 
place at this particular instant rather than a few moments later, 
when the irritation finally overcomes all resistance, is due to a 
voluntary act which allows hic et nunc a stimulus to have its 
natural mechanical effect. In the reaction time the stimulus 
is effective because the will has some time before accepted a 
- certain task—to react when a stimulus is perceived. Throughout 


*Cf. T. V. Moore, “A Study in Reaction Time and Movement,” 
Psychol. Rev. Mon. Supp., 1904, Vol. VI, No. 1. 


76 STIMULUS AND RESPONSE 


the experiment the will is consciously or unconsciously main- 
taining this task in mind, the result of which is the preparation 
of a motor discharge and a temporary inhibition of that charge, 
so that it will be set off or become effective when the stimulus 
is perceived. The fundamental difference between all forms of 
reaction-time experiments and all reflexes lies precisely in the 
presence of the task in the one, and its lack in the other. The 
task creates a neural are for stimulus and response which lasts 
as long as the task is held in mind by the subject. In the reflex 
actions this are is built into the fibre of the nervous system and 
cannot be eradicated by the will. The will can merely bring into 
play its inhibitory power to counteract the effects of the stimulus. 

Stimulus and Response in Reaction Time.—There is a fur- 
ther analogy between a refiex and a reaction in the fact that the 
stronger the stimulus the quicker and more violent the reflex 
response. So also, in reaction-time experiments, the stronger 
the stimulus the shorter the reaction time. Similarly also, the 
intensity of the movement is greater when a very loud signal for 
reaction is given.® It would seem at first sight that it is merely 
a question of utilizing the energy of the stimulus to ‘‘overcome 
resistance ’’ in the central nervous system, and to effect a more 
violent discharge in the efferent circuit. It is likely that the 
extra energy of the stimulus in a reaction is utilized in a reflex 
manner to produce a more violent movement. Until recently it 
appeared that shortening of the reaction time with increased in- 
tensity in the stimulus is merely a question of a stronger stimulus 
overcoming resistance in the synapses of the central nervous sys- 
tem. But, in 1915, Herbert Woodrow® undertook to compare the 
reaction time to the onset of stimuli with that obtained by re- 
acting to the cessation of stimuli of varying intensities. Thus, 
he raised the question, how does the cessation of a stimulus effect 
a reaction ? 

Sherrington supposes’ that in reflex action the prolongation 

°Cf. T. V. Moore, “Reaction Time and Movement,” Psychol. Rev. 
Monograph Supplements, 1904, Vol. VI, No. 1, pp. 52-53. 


® Psychol. Review, Vol. XXII. 
"Integrative Action of the Nervous System, p. 21, Fide Woodrow. 


-REACTION-TIME EXPERIMENTS 77 


of the time with decrease in intensity of the stimulus is due to 
delay in the weaker stimulus making its way from one neuron 
to the next. Pieron® supposes that this delay in reaction time 
is due to the inertia of the sense organ. In both eases the under- 
lying concept is that there is a certain amount of resistance to 
be overcome and the stronger stimulus accomplishes the task 
more readily. When, however, we stop a stimulus we cut off 
energy. Ifthe question is one of overcoming resistance we should 
expect some difference in the reaction time to the onset and to the 
cessation of stimuli. But, as a matter of fact, they are the same. 
Thus Woodrow got the following results for the ‘‘beginning’’ 
and ‘‘cessation’’ reactions. 






Beginning Reactions. Cessation Reactions. 
Phd dy Ara Mis V. 





Mode. Intensity. 































Medium 15 
Sound Medium 137 Ay; 17, 
Sound Medium 148 19 21 
Sound Weak 184. 26 30 
Sound Weak 174 20 29 
Sound Weak Sz 209 33 33 
Sound Liminal Ht 779 130 133 
Sound Liminal Vs 875 226 168 
Light Bright Ww 154 16 16 
Light Bright Ht 162 21 18 
Light Bright St 183 21 19 
Light Bright Vs 192 19 17 
Light Bright Sz 201 22 22 
Light Weak Ht 205 33 24 
Light Weak Vs 243 26 21 
Light Weak Sz 268 28 26 








These results are hard to explain on the basis of the resist- 
ance concept. One might attempt an explanation by supposing 
that the change due to the onset and to the cessation of a weak 
stimulus was transmitted along the nerve fibres more slowly than 
changes due to a strong stimulus. But experiments show that 


8“ Recherches sur les lois de variation des temps de latence sensorielle 
en fonction des intensités excicatrices,” L’Année psychol., 1914, pp. 17-96. 


%8 STIMULUS AND RESPONSE 


the transmission of nervous impulses is independent of their 
intensity. Should not then the change due to a continuous weak 


stimulus die down more quickly than that due to a strong one — 


and give us the very reverse of the results that Woodrow obtained ? 

Any attempt at mechanical explanation is very difficult, but 
the moment we look at the facts psychologically their interpreta- 
tion isapparent. The difficulty of perceiving the onset of the ces- 
sation of a weak stimulus is about equally great, for the reaction 
follows upon a perception. A delay, therefore, is in both cases 
to be expected. But with strong stimuli it is more easy to notice 
their onset and their cessation, and in both cases we expect and 
obtain a shorter reaction. Woodrow’s experiments indicate that 
in reaction there is a perceptive element. Some of his reaction 
times are short enough to be regarded as muscular. It would, 
therefore, appear that even in muscular reactions there is an 
element of perception. 

Is there a neurological correlate of perception in the reflex? 
This question cannot be answered without further experimental 
evidence. It is probable, however, that nothing akin to reactions 
to cessation of stimuli will be found in a reflex machine like the 
decerebrated frog—or, if found, that it will not obey the law 
discovered by Woodrow for reactions to the beginning and cessa- 
tion of stimuli. 


°Cf. hereon literature cited by Woodrow, p. 437. 





: 
P 


CHAPTER III 
TROPISMS 


General Concept of Tropisms.—The term tropism is used to 
designate responses of living organisms to simple physical stimuli, 
toward the source of which they move, or from which they turn 
away. If the resulting movement is toward the stimulus, the 
tropism is termed positive; if away from the stimulus, negative. 
As thus defined the term makes no theoretical implications, but 
simply refers to the fact that certain organisms do orientate 
- themselves in definite ways in the presence of simple physical 
stimuli. There can be no doubt as to the existence of the facts 
and the term aptly designates the responses. 

In the minds of some investigators, however, it is always 
implied that these terms indicate mechanical modes of action or 
forced movements over which the organism has no control. Thus, 
Loeb continually refers to the flight of the moth into the candle 
flame as an example of a forced movement due to heliotropism. 
He regards it as brought about by the forced turning of the head 
to the light which is reflexly caused by a greater tonus of the 
muscles on the illuminated side. The fatal flight is not, therefore, 
psychologically but mechanically caused. The moth is not curious 
nor fond of light, as is popularly supposed, but moves with fatal 
necessity to the flame that burns it. This attitude is adopted by 
Loeb because he thinks that plants as well as animals are simi- 
larly affected by the forces of nature. Plants are not supposed 
to be affected by conscious factors, therefore animals are acting 
mechanically when they react to the same forces in the same 
manner. This is the argument which underlies much of the dis- 
cussion about the tropisms in animals. We must, however, be 

1Verworn would substitute taxis for tropisms because the words 

chemotropism, heliotropism, etc., “ nicht bloss schwerfillig klingen sondern 
auch vom sprachlichen Standpunkt aus Bedenken erregen miissen,” Allge- 


meine Physiologie, fifth edition, p. 547. He, therefore, would use instead: 
Chemotaxis, phototaxis, etc. 


79 


80 STIMULUS AND RESPONSE 


careful of arguments based on analogy. Tf one went into a room 
with windows at one end only and saw the leaves of the plants 
all turned to the light, and a group of men gathered at the light 
reading and writing, he would scarcely be inclined to ascribe to 
one and the same mechanical tropism this orientation of men and 
plants to the source of light. Similarly, unicellular organisms 
may behave toward simple physical stimuli just as multicellular 
plants do, but that does not mean that analogous behavior indi- 
cates one and the same mechanism that brings it about. It 
may be that there are a number of mechanisms at the basis of 
heliotropism in animals and in plants, and it may be also that 
there is in them something akin to what we know in consciousness 
as pleasantness and unpleasantness, fright, etc., influencing 
their movements. 

At the present day there is a very strict taboo on conscious- 
ness being mentioned in connection with animals, and some are 
attempting to see if they cannot get along without it even in 
human psychology. This originated in a reaction of scientific 
investigators against the tendency of popular writers to interpret 
naively animal behavior in terms of human thought and feeling 
which has grown until it has become a veritable ‘‘anthropo- 
morphophobia.’’ Certain teachers refuse to use, or allow their 
pupils to use, any term that connotes consciousness in treating of 
animals, and some extremists would extend this even to man. The 
argument is: If animal behavior ean be explained without sup- 
posing consciousness as. a factor, let us discard the concept en- 
tirely and regard the organism as a pure reflex machine. In a 
similar way one might see a stone fall from the roof of a building 
to the ground and argue that the fall of this stone can be explained 
in a purely mechanical way as due to the age and crumbling of 
the building, freezing, etc., and refuse to consider any other 
possibility. But the explanation might involve a tilt given to 
the stone by a human hand. And if someone sitting beneath 
were injured and a murder trial resulted, it would no longer be 
sufficient to say that the event could be explained as a mechanical 
effect of the forces of nature and refuse to consider the possibility 
of a human interference with intent to kill. 


TROPISMS 81 


At the present day the behavior of animals is by no means 
so thoroughly understood that we can maintain that it can be 
entirely explained in terms of mechanical action. It may be 
highly interesting to attempt the task, but if we want to discover 
truth and not amuse ourselves, it will not do to assume at the out- 
set that any animal, much less all animals, are pure reflex 
machines. Our mind must be open to the possibilities on both 
sides. Our attitude must not be, is it possible to conceive of ani- 
mal bahavior in terms of purely mechanical elements, but rather 
one of open-minded research for evidence that will incline us to 
one conclusion or the other. All questions cannot be decided with 
absolute certainty. Many important steps must be taken on 
merely probable evidence. If we can get only probable evidence 
on the inner nature of animal behavior, it is worth having. It is 
not justifiable to say: We can never prove that animals are con- 
scious, let us therefore regard them as machines. 

If the analogy of structure counts for anything, it is very 
likely that such a complicated structure as the eye, preserving 
a similar anatomy and histology throughout the vertebrate king- 
dom, has, wherever found, a similar function and mediates some- 
thing akin to what we are aware of in vision. If this analogy be 
extended to the eye spot on Euglena, we are very likely to be mis- 
taken. If we should say that Euglena and plants, positively 
heliotropic to light, are controlled in their reactions to light by 
one and the same mechanism, we are again very likely to be mis- 
taken. We should, therefore, approach the problem of tropisms 
without any assumption of the presence or absence of mechanical 
factors and make up our minds purely on the basis of the facts 
that may be observed. 

A Typical Tropism.—Let us approach the study by the con- 
sideration of a familiar tropism that has been carefully studied 
and for which there seems to be a good mechanical explanation. 
The roots of plants are positively geotropic to the force of gravity, 
the stems are negatively geotropic. No matter how the seed is 
‘planted, the stem grows up and the root down. Pull up the grow- 
ing seedling, put the stem down and the root up, and the root 
slowly turns down while the stem gradually assumes again the 


82 STIMULUS AND RESPONSE 


upright position. This is the phenomenon; what is the mechan- 
ism of its explanation? If we study a longitudinal section of the 
root-tip microscopically, we find in the central portions of the 
root-cap (the columella) a number of cells, termed statocysts, 
containing starch grains. These grains rest on the physically | 
lower part of their cells. Each cell contains about twenty-five 
starch grains—enough to form about two layers in the bottom of 
of the cell. Being heavier than the protoplasm, they sink under 
the influence of gravity, always resting on the lower cell wall. It 
seems possible, therefore, that they may have something to do 
with the positive geotropism of the root. Is there any evidence 
that they do? 

Haberlandt? mentions the following experimental evidence: 

(1) If the root-cap, which contains the starch grains, is cut off, 
its geotropism is destroyed. When the geotropism manifests 
itself again, starch grains may be found in the wound-callus. 
This is not due to shock effect, because incision denuding an equal 
area, but leaving the root-cap intact, does not to the same extent 
interfere with geotropic curvature. 

(2) Nemec imbedded the radicles of Vicia faba in plaster of 
Paris, thereby inhibiting growth and bringing about a dissolution 
of the starch grains. When the roots were liberated, they re- 
sumed growth, but manifested no geotropic curvature till the 
starch grains in the columella had been regenerated. 

(3) By storing onions for several years the roots will become 
devoid of starch grains. If experimented on at the end of this 
period, they will not manifest geotropism for several days. When 
they finally do, microscopic examination will show that the starch 
grains have been regenerated. 

(4) By subjecting stem or roots to a series of vertical impacts 
from a tuning fork, the geotropic curvature may be accelerated. 
This is to be expected if the jar caused by falling starch grains 
is the prime factor. 

It would thus seem that in one tropism at least we have a 
purely mechanical explanation. The ultimate reason why the root 


* Physiological Plant Anatomy, trans. from fourth German edition by 
Drummond, London, 1914, p. 609 ff. 


TROPISMS 83 


turns to the earth is the force of gravity itself, acting not upon the 
root as a whole but on microscopic particles in the root. This 
bending is not only a passive something but a growth, in roots, 
toward the centre of the earth. It is not clear just why growth 
in one direction should be stimulated by the presence of the 
starch grains in the bottom of a cell; but when we remember that 
mitosis or cellular division takes place in wounds when pressure 
has been removed on the side of the abrasion and stops when 
equal pressure has been restored by the epidermis closing over, 
we have perhaps an indication of the mode of action of the falling 
starch grains. They cause an inequality of tension in the eell, 
and growth follows the line of least resistance. 

Does it, therefore, follow that all tropistic phenomena in ani- 
mals and plants are purely mechanical in nature? Not until the 
mechanism has been demonstrated as the cause of the tropism. 
Let us examine now the various forms of tropism in animals 
and plants. 

Geotropism.—We have just considered the phenomenon of 
geotropism in plants. This, we should note, is a bending and a 
growth by which the bending becomes fixed. There is nothing 
clearly identical with it in the animal world, but there are a 
number of things to which it bears a superficial resemblance. 

The closest resemblance is in the hydroid, Antennularia. 
‘‘When the stem of Antennularia antennina which normally 
grows vertically upward, is put into an oblique position in the 
aquarium, the tip bends until it is again in a vertical position, 
and then continues to grow in this direction vertically upward.’”* 
The mechanism of this tropism has not been clearly investigated, 
and we have no experiments showing the presence of statocysts 
and their geotropic function such as we have in the ease of plant 
roots and stems. It is probable, however, that an animal, fixed 
and growing, with the general habitus of a plant and behaving 
towards gravity in a similar way, has a mechanism to account 
for its behavior similar to that of the plant. 

Connected with the auditory apparatus of many animals are 
small calcareous particles resting in hairs that are connected 
~ * Loeb, The Dynamics of Living Matter, 1906, p. 148. 


84 STIMULUS AND RESPONSE 


with the vestibular root of the eighth cranial nerve. It is known 
and it can be demonstrated that in some animals gravity, acting 
upon these caleareous particles (otoliths) and they in turn upon 
the hair cells amid which they rest, reflexly maintains the ani- 
mal in a state of static equilibrium. A curious and interesting 
demonstration of this was given by Kreidl.* The crustacean 
Palemon loses its otoliths in the process of moulting. It readily 
makes good the defect by putting sand into its ears. Kreidl hit 
upon the ingenious plan of placing these crustaceans on a bed of 
finely divided iron instead of sand. The crustaceans then put 
the iron into their ears instead of sand. When Kreidl brought 
an electric magnet near the Palemon’s head, it executed com- 
pensatory movements just as it does when the animal is tilted on a 
board and the force of gravity acts upon it in varying directions. 
He thus proved that the direction of the line of pressure of the 
otoliths is the fundamental factor in their reflex maintenance 
of equilibrium. 

How closely, we may ask, does this equilibration reflex resem- 
ble the geotropism of the roots of plants? It bears a certain 
resemblance only at one end of the reflex are. The further fate 
of the stimulus along the vestibular nerve and the posterior 
longitudinal fasciculus to the gray matter of the cord and the 
spinal root cells and thence via the anterior roots and motor 
fibres to the muscle, seems such an extensive addition, that one 
should hesitate to designate the two reactions by one and the 
same name. It would be much better to term these righting 
movements equilibration reflexes, rather than geotropisms. It 
is a bad thing to lose sight of important distinctions in an 
attempt at generalization. 

Under the term ‘‘geotropism’’ various authors include the 
tendency of microorganisms to accumulate at upper and lower 
levels of the water.” Thus, Paramecia prefer the upper levels 
and are spoken of as negatively geotropic. Many forms of bac- 
teria prefer the lower levels and are spoken of as positively geo- 
tropic. It is rather peculiar that the geotropic reactions of Para- 

* Sitzungsber. der Wiener Akademie der Wissensh, 1893, Vol. 102, 


Abth., 3, p. 149, Fide Loeb, op. cit., p. 152. 
°Cf. E. G. Verworn, Allgemeine Physiologie, fifth edition, p. 525. 


TROPISMS 85 


mecium do not take place if the walls of the containing vessel 
are not clean, or if the water contains many solid particles in 
suspension. In such cases the animals may settle against the 
solid matter on the walls of the tube and remain at any level. 
The explanation of this fact would throw no little light on the 
true nature of this reaction. It seems to exclude the explanation 
of changes of pressure and their resultant effect on the trans- 
fusion of materials through the cell walls. 

The human race manifests a similar type of reaction. When 
we ascend above certain altitudes we become dyspneic, easily 
fatigued, and suffer from palpitation of the heart. We feel 
uncomfortable and dissatisfied and descend to a lower level. Are 
we, therefore, positively geotropic? Not in the sense that geo- 
tropism is a forced movement—that above certain altitudes our 
muscles reflexly assume a tonus that makes downward movement 
and only downward movement possible. Are we sure that lower 
organisms move only within limited regions because gravity at 
certain depths causes forced movements that bring them to 
other levels? 

Jennings thus describes the movements of Paramecium in mak- 
ing their depth reaction: ‘‘ Studying the movements of Para- 
mecia at this point, one observes that the forward motion becomes 
slower, while the spiral course becomes wider. The animals swerve 
more strongly than usual toward the aboral side, so that the 
anterior end swings about in a eircle..... Thus, the animals 
are giving the avoiding reaction, ‘trying’ successively many 
different positions. This is continued or repeated till after a 
time they come into a position with anterior end upward. The 
strong swerving reaction then ceases; the animals swim upward 
in the usual spiral course.’’® 

It is possible and probable that the reason for this reaction 
is similar to that of geotropism in plant organisms. Lyon has 
pointed out that Paramecium contains substances of different 
specific gravities. If, then, it directs its anterior end downwards 
there must be a redistribution of these particles. This produces 
a stimulus and the animal reacts until this source of irritation 


°H. §S. Jennings, Behavior of the Lower Organisms, New York, 
1906, p. 76. 


86 STIMULUS AND RESPONSE 


is relieved, which occurs only when the anterior end is again 
directed upwards.’ 

If this theory of the depth reaction of Paramecium is correct, 
there is an analogy of functions between its suspended particles, 
the starch grains in certain plant cells, and the otoliths of the 
metazoa. While in plants the effect of the starch grains is direct, 
changing the tension in certain cells and their metabolism with- 
out further apparent accompaniment, in Paramecium and the 
metazoa it seems likely that conditions of stimulation or irri- 
tation intervene between the action of gravity on certain particles 
and the righting reaction. In ourselves we recognize a disturb- 
ance of equilibrium by a sensation of peculiar character. It is 
not unreasonable to suppose, in metazoa with neural mechanism 
similar to our own, that there may be at times, associated with the 
righting reaction, conscious states bearing some similarity to our 
own. Is there anything of this nature in the microscopic Para- 
mecium? There is no scientific evidence to rule out this possi- 
bility. Its movements, on the contrary, as observed, do not 
seem to be forced by a greater tonus in the cilia of one side rather 
than another. It seems rather to react until a source of irritation 
is removed. That some dim forces of ‘‘awareness’’ should be 
associated with this irritation is within the realm of possibility. 

Heliotropism.—This tropism may be familiarly observed by 
anyone who places a plant in his window and watches the leaves 
and the flowers turn towards the light. Its mechanism is only 
obscurely understood. According to the studies of Haberlandt it 
seems likely that the structure of the epidermis is such that it 
ean focus the rays of light and thereby cause a difference of 
illumination in the interior of the leaf. The position of the point 
of focus would vary with the direction of the source of illumina- 
tion. His experiments would indicate that highly sensitive plants 
have a capacity for reacting to differences of light intensity 
‘‘which is not inferior to that of the human eye.’’S 

The epidermis being the receiving organ of this reaction, the 
light is transmitted by it to the tissues beneath. Here it acts upon 

‘Lyon, E. P., “On the Theory of Geotropism in Paramecium,” Ameri- 


can Journal of Physiol., XIV, 421-432, Fide Jennings. 
* Physiological Plant Anatomy, translated by Drummond, p. 629. 


TROPISMS 87 


a substance, which is in general absent from the epidermis itself, 
the chlorophyl, a greenish coloring matter contained in small 
granular bodies termed chloroplasts. The chloroplasts take up 
a position which exposes them to a maximum degree of illum- 
ination, unless the intensity of light exceeds an optimal maxi- 
mum. Thus, under mild illumination they may be arranged 
above the horizontal cell walls—just under the thin layer of epi- 
dermis that transmits the daylight. If the hght becomes stronger, 
they may leave the horizontal and arrange themselves along the 
vertical walls, where they enjoy a certain degree of protection. 
Under very intense illumination they may clump together in the 
centre of the cell. 

The mechanism which underlies this motility of the chloro- 
plasts is unknown to us. We simply name it when we say that 
under mild illumination the chloroplasts are positively helio- 
tropic, under strong illumination negatively heliotropic. We 
likewise are ignorant of the exact mechanism by which certain 
flowers keep their heads directed toward the sun from morning 
until evening. 

Many unicellular plant forms, many protozoa, and metazoa 
manifest this tropism. How some of these forms of life move 
at all is acomplete mystery to us. It is not surprising then that we 
should not understand just why they move to or away from 
the light. 

In the metazoa, heliotropism is sometimes an important ele- 
ment in instinctive activity. Loeb has shown that when the cater- 
pillars of Porthesia chrysorrhea have just left the coeoon in 
which they wintered they are very strongly positively heliotropie. 
This, along with a much weaker negative geotropism, forces them 
to crawl away upward and never downward. The result of this 
is that they eventually reach the tips of the branches on which 
they crawl, and there the same warm sun which drew them out 
of their cocoon has brought forth the first tender buds of the 
spring. It is in this way that they find their first food with 
“unerring certainty. 

Loeb maintains that animal and plant movements are depend- 
ent upon light in one and the same way because : 


88 STIMULUS AND RESPONSE 


(1) The movements caused by light depend upon the direc- 
tion of the rays of light in both animals and plants.° 

(2) The shorter are more effective than the longer wave- 
lengths of light in ealling forth heliotropism both in animals 
and in plants. 

(3) The reaction in both is a factor also of the intensity of 
the rays of light, so that between two lights the tropism is 
towards the stronger light. 

(4) Light causes the orientation of plants and animals ei 
within certain limits of intensity. 

(5) Temperature influences the movements of orientation of 
both plants and animals to hght.’° 

With the exception of the cloud of doubt which hangs over the 
question, whether the intensity or the direction of the rays of 
light is the determining factor, the similarities maintained by 
Loeb are well-established facts. Does it, therefore, follow that 
heliotropism in animals and plants is essentially identical ? 

A tropism, it should be remembered, is something akin to a 
reflex action. It consists of a stimulus, a central process or proc- 
esses, and a response. For real identity all the elements must 
be the same. To show that the stimulus is the same in both ani- 
mals and plants does not establish the identity. In his enthusi- 
asm to establish identity Loeb has eonfined his attention to the 
stimulus. The central process is very important in considering 
the true nature of this tropism, but of the nature of the central 
process we are as yet in ignorance. Until further information is 
available the question remains open. 

In man there is nothing similar to the heliotropism of plant 
life in the sense that equilibration resembles geotropism. Here the 
reaction is dependent on consciousness, for a man who is totally 

°It may be well to note here that botanists and zoologists are not 
agreed upon the point whether or not heliotropic movements are dependent 
on the direction of the rays of light, or on the intensity of the illumination. 
Verworn in his Allgemeine Physiologie cites an observation of Oltmanns 
which would indicate that intensity and not the direction of light is the 
prime factor. Cf. F. Oltmanns, Ueber die photometrischen Bewegungen der 
Pflanzen. Flora., Jahrg. 1892. 

* Studies in General Physiology, Chicago, 1905, Part I, 


TROPISMS 89 


unconscious does not maintain his equilibrium. It is, therefore, 
remarkably different from the geotropism of plants—not because 
the acting force is different, but because the central process is not 
the same. It is very likely that some difference obtains between 
the central processes in the heliotropism of the metazoa and those 
involved in the mechanism by which, for example, the leaves 
of the ivy always maintain one side to the sun and another to 
the wall. 

Chemotropism.—Microorganisms have a tendency to move 
toward or away from certain chemical substances. This movement, 
in some eases at least, is due to the fact that a chemical substance 
diffusing in one region produces a relatively greater or less source 
of irritation. The response to this source of irritation is an avoid- 
ing reaction which results in the organisms accumulating in the 
region of relative freedom from irritation. Thus, Jennings found 
that if a drop of .1 per cent. sodium chloride be allowed to diffuse 
under a slide containing Paramecia when the animals come to the 
zone of diffusion they give their avoiding reaction and swim in 
another direction. If, however, they are placed to start with in a .5 
per cent. solution of sodium chloride, and a drop of .1 per cent. 
sodium chloride is allowed to diffuse in this solution, the animals 
on coming to the zone of diffusion pass right through into the 
drop. On coming to the zone of diffusion at the other side of the 
drop they here give their avoiding reaction, and swim back again 
to the other edge where the avoiding reaction is again repeated, 
and soon. The result of this is that protozoa happening to pass 
into the drop are caught and held so that it is soon swarming 
with organisms. 

Bacteria are strongly positively chemotropie to oxygen. The 
leucocytes of the blood are strongly chemotropic to bacteria. The 
source of this attraction is probably the toxines that are diffused 
from the bodies of the bacteria. When a nerve is cut the fibres 
separated from their cell of origin degenerate. The sheaths in 
which they were placed remain as empty cylinders. When regen- 
eration commences the nerve fibres may pass through several 
centimetres, even turning around obstacles, to find these empty 
sheaths—into which they finally grow. The process by which 

q 


90 STIMULUS AND RESPONSE 


this is done is supposed to be a chemotropism, its source being 
the diffusion of the products of degeneration into the sur- 
rounding tissues. 

It is probably due to chemotropism that the snarniitGende 
approaches the ovum and adheres to it until it finally penetrates 
its wall. The growth of tissues, in‘the embryo, of the nerves to 
their muscles, of pigment cells to definite localities is probably 
due to chemotropic influences. 

According to Loeb, the orientation of animals towards chemi- 
eal stimuli is again a question of forced movements: ‘‘ The cen- 
tre of diffusion takes the place of the source of light, and the lines 
of diffusion (that is, the straight lines along which the molecules 
move from the centre of diffusion into the surrounding medium, 
i.e., the air) the place of the rays of light. The chemical effect 
of the diffusing molecules on certain elements of the skin influence 
the tension of the muscles, as the rays of light influence the tension 
of the muscles in heliotropic animals.** As typical examples 
he cites the movements of flies towards decaying meat on which 
they deposit their eggs, and the movements of the larve 
towards substances found in decaying meat and cheese. These 
animals are bilaterally symmetrical, and it is mainly to such 
animals, says Loeb, that his theory applies. He has not, however, 
excluded the possibility of a real sensory guidance due to the 
sense of smell. There is no positive evidence that his imaginary 
mechanism really effects the movements of flies toward substances 
on which they deposit their eggs. It certainly does not account 
for the movements of Paramecium nor of ameba as the observa- 
tions of Jennings show. The probable explanation of chemotrop- 
ism is a physiological irritation and attraction to which the 
organism reacts as a unit. The irritation may be due at times 
to osmosis; of the physiological nature of the attraction we 
have at present no mechanical concept. 

Thermotropism.—Animals always move away from a region 
in which temperature conditions are unfavorable to their vital 
processes. Their positive or negative thermotropism is therefore 
always relative. Its probable source is a condition of irritation 








“Comparative Physiology of the Brain, New York, 1900, p. 186. 


TROPISMS 91 


caused by any extreme of temperature whether above or below 
their physiological zero. The organisms move till they come 
to a region where this irritation is reduced to a minimum. 

Mendelssohn, in studying the tropisms of unicellular organ- 
isms, supposed that they gathered at the warmer or cooler end 
of a trough of water because compelled by forced movements such 
as Verworn supposes in his theory of tropistic action. If one 
of these unicellular organisms is swimming with its long axis 
perpendicular to that of the trough its cilia on one side are 
cooled, on the other heated. In positive thermotropism the cooled 
cilia, according to theory, beat more rapidly and the animal 
turns to the warmer end. In negative thermotropism the warmed 
cilia are supposed to beat more rapidly and the animal turns 
to the cooler end. 

Jennings by actual observation of the infusoria found that 
they did nothing of the kind. When they come to a region where 
the temperature is above or below their optimum, instead of 
turning in the simple way supposed by the theory of tropisms, 
they back up and then drive ahead again but always at a 
different angle and to the side away from the mouth. In this 
way they eventually turn completely around and swim in the 
opposite direction. 

There is in these organisms no clearly demonstrable simple 
mechanism that is set in action mechanically by mere differences 
in temperature in the two sides of the body. 

Stereotropism.—This peculiar form of reaction is a tendency 
of certain animals to bring their bodies into contact with the 
greatest possible area of solid surroundings. Thus, when you 
roll over a log in the woods the insects scatter hither and thither. 
This reaction is not always a negative heliotropism but sometimes 
a positive stereotropism. For some of these insects will take 
refuge under a plate of glass as well as under a log. An earth- 
worm placed in an empty tin can will not coil up anywhere, but 
will move about till its body finds support in the angle formed by 
the junction of the bottom and wall of the containing vessel. 

A mechanical explanation of this tropism in mere terms of 
inequality of stimulus on the two sides of the body is by no 
means clearly evident. 


92 STIMULUS AND RESPONSE 


Galvanotropism.—This is a type of reaction never met with 
in nature and the only one to which perhaps Loeb’s concept oe 
forced movements applies. 

The introduction of the term, according to Loeb, was due 
to J. Miller-Hettlingen, who found, while working in Hermann’s 
laboratory, that if the seedlings of Vicia faba are exposed to a 
constant current the tips of the roots bend back to the cathode. 
Hermann discovered shortly after that tadpoles placed in a 
trough through which a constant current is passing turn their 
heads to the anode. (Loeb was unable to confirm this.) ? 

Blasius and Schweizer found’® that many animals when 
placed in a trough of water through which a current is passing 
manifest their tendency to go to the anode. They suppose that 
the animals assumed the position that caused them the least pain. 
On careful examination Loeb and Maxwell found the following 
interesting condition in the crustacean Palemontes: ‘‘When 
the animal is subjected to a constant current in a trough of 
water its limbs are forced to assume such positions that it can 
move most easily to the anode—but with difficulty in any 
other direction.’’* 

This quotation gives us an idea of a forced orientation toward 
a given stimulus. It is this concept which lies at the basis of 
Verworn’s and Loeb’s mechanical theory of tropisms in general. 
According to the mechanical theory, not only the galvanic ecur- 
rent but all the modes of energy to which organisms react, stimu- 
late symmetrical points of the body surface, which stimulation, 
being transmitted by the central nervous system, produces a differ- 
ence in muscular tonus on two sides of the body. This difference 
in tonus forces them to go toward or away from the point of 
stimulation in a purely mechanical manner. Another example 
of forced movements in the electric current is found in Paramecia. 
When they are subjected to a galvanic current they move 

“Cf. Loeb, The Dynamics of Living Matter, 1906, p. 145. 

® Pfliiger’s Archiv., 1893, Vol. 53, p. 493, Fide Loeb. 

* Quoted from Loeb, Comparative Physiology of the Brain, pp. 164-166. 


See also Loeb and Maxwell, “ Zur Theorie des Galvanotropismus,” P/fliiger’s 
Archiv., 1896, Vol. LXVITI. 


TROPISMS 93 


promptly tothe cathode. Reverse the current, and they move with 
machine-like regularity to the new negative pole. Examin- 
ing these infusoria under such conditions one finds that they are 
really attempting to swim in two directions at once, the anterior 
cilia pointing to the cathode, and the posterior to the anode. 
The point at which the reversal of the cilia takes place varies 
with the strength of the current. With a certain intensity of 
current the animals no longer progress in any one direction but 
swing about in an incoordinate fashion. With strong currents 
they move backwards to the anode.*® : 

In no other type of stimulus do we observe reactions that 
are in any way similar. If, however, all stimuli produced their 
tropisms in this fashion we should be able to detect some indi- 
cations of a change in tonus in the locomotor organs of the 
reacting organism. 

Bancroft'® criticized this argument of Jennings and pointed 
out that Huglena reacts to the electric current in the same way 
that it reacts to light. ‘‘It is evident,’’ he says, ‘‘from this account, 
that the details of the galvanotropic orientation are identical with 
the heliotropic orientation as described by Mast, and which I 
ean confirm. Huglena has no more direct way of orienting than 
that employed in heliotropism. Jennings’ contrast between heli- 
otropic and galvanotropic orientation will not hold for this organ- 
ism.’’ (Pp. 413-414.) But to defend Loeb’s position one must show 
that all tropisms take place by the constrained movements that 
one observes in galvanotropism with the organs of locomotion 
forced to take up different positions in accordance with the direc- 
tion of the current. What is needed is evidence that in heliotrop- 
ism, and in all other tropisms, as well as in galvanotropism, a 
difference in tonus in the organs of locomotion exists and varies 
with the direction of the source of stimulation. To point out a 
galvanotropism which resembles heliotropism, but in which no 
differential tonus is observed, does not help Loeb’s theory in 
the slightest. 

16 Of, Jennings’ Behavior of the Lower Organisms, 1906, p. 83 ff. 


16“ Heliotropism, Differential Sensibility, and Galvanotropism in 
Euglena,” Journal of Experimental Zoology, 1913, XV, pp. 383-428. 


94 STIMULUS AND RESPONSE 


Until this differential muscular tonus can be actually seen 
in the other tropisms we can only say that scientific observation 
has not confirmed Loeb’s ingenious speculations. It indicates, 
on the contrary, that tropisms take place because organisms react 
as individuals to conditions of irritation and sources of attrac- 
tion, until the irritation is removed or the object which attracts 
is attained. Irritation and attraction are to be understood in a 
physiological and not a psychological sense. It is not, however, 
possible to deny with certainty all psychological accompaniment 
to these physiological conditions. In fact, in many eases, espe- 
cially in the metazoa, arguments of analogy lead us to postulate 
the probable existence of psychological elements actually enter- 
ing as causal factors in the tropistic mechanism. 

Tropisms and Chemical Reactions.—Loeb argues that the 
‘Canimal will’’ may be expressed in terms of photochemical reac- 
tions because both follow one and the same law—namely, the law 
of Bunsen and Roscoe—that the photochemical effect of light 
equals the product of the intensity of the light times the dura- 
tion of the illumination. He measured the time it takes for 50 
per cent. of a number of young regenerating polyps of Huden- 
drium to turn to the source of illumination with various inten- 
sities of light. He found a rough agreement between the observed 
times and those calculated by the Bunsen-Roscoe law. Blaauw 
showed the same law to hold for the heliotropic curvatures of 
the seedlings of Avena sativa. Loeb then argues as follows: 
‘* It is, therefore, obvious that blind instinct which forces ani- 
mals to go to the light, e.g., in the case of the moth, is identical 
with the instinct which makes a plant bend to the light and is a 
special case of the same law of Bunsen and Roscoe which also 
explains the photochemical effects in inanimate nature; or in 
other words, the will or tendency of an animal to move towards 
the light can be expressed in terms of the Bunsen-Roseoe law 
of photochemical reactions.’’!” 

A. consideration of the evidence on which this conclusion is 
based raises an interesting problem in scientific logic. 


— 


™ Loeb, The Organism as a Whole. 


TROPISMS. 95 


Loeb started out with an experimental principle. All photo- 
chemical reactions obey a certain law. He then uses this prin- 
ciple as a criterion to find out whether or not certain other things 
are also photochemical reactions. And here he slips into a logical 
fallacy, for the use of this principle as a criterion to find out 
whether or not other things which obey the same law are photo- 
chemical reactions, implies a simple conversion of a universal 
affirmative proposition. 

If one can say, all things that obey law X are photochemical 
reactions, then all we have to do is to ascertain by appropriate 
experiments the fact of conformity to law X in order to show 
that the thing that conforms is a photochemical reaction. But 
this is not the starting point of Loeb’s argument, but the converse, 
viz., all photochemical reactions obey law X. But, granted that. 
all photochemical reactions obey law X, it does not follow that 
everything that obeys law X is a photochemical reaction. All 
men are animals gives us no warrant for saying that every ani- 
mal isa man. All chemical compounds are by weight constant 
multiples of the units that compose them; but all things which 
are constant multiples by weight of the units that compose them 
are not chemical compounds. 

: ‘There is only one case in which a universal affirmative propo- 
sition may be simply converted, and that is where the proposition 
is a definition so correctly expressing the nature or a property 
of the thing defined that the predicate agrees to this thing and 
this thing only. Thus the classic definition, all men are rational 
animals, may be simply converted to all rational animals are men. 

A definition which does not express genus and specific differ- 
ence, or a property which belongs exclusively to the thing de- 
fined, cannot be simply converted. Thus, one might describe 
gravity as a force whose intensity varies inversely as the square 
of the distance. One would not be justified in using this as a 
general criterion for detecting the force of gravity by simply 
converting it, and saying that every force whose intensity varies 
inversely as the square of the distance, is identical with the force 
of gravity. For the intensity of light varies inversely with 
the square of distance, and it is not clear without any 


96 STIMULUS AND RESPONSE 


other evidence that there is no difference between the two forces. 
Modern physics may show relationship between the two or per- 
haps even identity; but the proof of this identity will demand 
something more than the logically fallacious method of Loeb. 

What, then, are we to say of the identity of the ‘‘animal will’’ 
with a photochemical reaction? That the conclusion based on 
agreement with the law of Bunsen and Roscoe is premature and 
rests on a logical fallacy—to say nothing of a lack of analysis of 
the concept of the ‘‘animal will.’’ 

The fact, however, that heliotropism in plants and in some 
animals seems to follow the law of photochemical reactions is a 
valuable piece of information. Analogy suggests the possibility 
and even the probability that a photochemical reaction is one 
element in the chain of events which constitute the tropism. The 
following up of such analogies is the surest road to scientific 
discovery. But hasty generalizations built upon them lead 
usually to nothing but error and confusion. 

Tropisms in Human Life.—The roéle played by tropisms in 
human life is very limited. They are reactions by which organ- 
isms orientate themselves toward simple physical stimuli. In 
the general sense here given they do play a limited role in our 
life. In the strict sense of Loeb—that of forced movements to 
or from the source of stimulation—they are utterly unknown in 
human experience. Simple physical stimuli do, however, act 
upon us agreeably or disagreeably, and we avoid them or seek 
them without thinking or perhaps with deliberate intent and fore- 
thought. We do not have, however, any pronounced tendency 
to place our bodies in such a position that these stimuli act upon 
symmetrical areas. An example of such an orientation is per- 
haps human thermotropism to a fire. When a man goes to a fire 
to get warm he stands first with his face to the fire. If the front 
part of his body gets too warm, he faces full about and puts 
his back to the fire. He does not go to the fire and put first one 
side of his body and then the other towards the blaze; but he has 
a definite tendency to face the source of heat symmetrically. The 
probable reason for this is the fact that in man the anterior and 
posterior surfaces are larger than the lateral, and, consequently, 


TROPISMS 97 


absorb more heat. There is no question of any forced movement. 
The orientation seems rather to depend on a maximum feeling of 
satisfaction. 

Physical stimuli, such as heat and light, are regarded as fun- 
damental requirements of modern life, not as ends in themselves, 
but as conditions for the enjoyment of other interests. They 
thus slip into the background. Human kinetic activity is not 
directed by such things; but rather by instinctive cravings and 
intellectual pursuits with which light, heat, and electricity as 
such have little or nothing to do. 


ESA 





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PART III 
HUMAN EMOTIONAL LIFE 


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CHAPTER I 
THE AFFECTIVE MENTAL STATES 


To ORDINARY unskilled interpretation there is a very clear 
distinction between our sensations and our ideas, on the one 
hand, and such states as we term feelings or sentiments, on the 
other hand. In the history of psychology there has been a great 
deal of discussion about the nature and validity of this distine- 
tion. The opinions have varied from a denial of the distinction 
altogether up to the assertion of absolute independence for both 
classes of phenomena. It might be well to subdivide our dis- 
cussion of the various problems which arise in the study of the 
affective mental states into certain headings, pointing out as we 
go along the names and the historical interest attaching to each 
problem that thereby arises. 

I. In the first place, we may ask: Are there really any affec- 
tive mental states at all? The Stoics were perhaps the first who 
denied the existence of the feelings and emotions as something 
distinct from the representative mental processes. The Stoic 
definitions of emotions are all in terms of intellectual judgments, 
and allow no room for a mental state distinct from the representa- 
tive processes. Against this view may be urged, in the first place, 
the fact of introspection that, for instance, anger is not only an 
awareness of the fact that someone has done me an injury, but 
is a specific reaction over and above this intellectual judgment. 
In fact, we may say that the mind receives impressions and re- 
acts to the perceptions that it receives. The reception of impres- 
sions results in some kind of a mental copy or representation of 
the object. This mental copy or representation is the more or 
less complex group of sensations and images and concepts which 
are aroused and united into one organic unit—the perception of 
the object. Besides this passive reception the mind reacts to 


_ this perception in a definite way. It finds the reception, at times 


at least, agreeable or disagreeable. It accepts or rejects it with 
a display of mental phenomena which are distinct from the re- 
101 


102 HUMAN EMOTIONAL LIFE 


ception itself or mere intellectual judgment based upon this 
distinction. This display of mental phenomena is the group of 
affective mental processes. There is one peculiar characteristic 
of the affective mental states which distinguishes them very 
sharply from the representative mental states. This is the fact 
that the representative mental states may be very easily attended 
to as such; that attention to them brings them out all the more 
clearly and seems almost to increase their intensity. Attention, 
however, to an emotion or a feeling is scarcely possible. We 
may think of the cause of the emotion or of the feeling and there- 
by increase its intensity, but if we try to look at the emotion 
itself to, let us say, its peculiar pleasurable quality as distinct 
from the sensation, or try to analyze an emotion of anger in 
the midst of our rage, immediately the emotion dwindles and 
slips into the background of consciousness. The affective 
mental states cannot be attended to in the same way as the 
representative processes. We are, therefore, justified in dis- 
tinguishing these two classes of phenomena. This distinction 
points out to us the fact that in the interaction between the mind 
and its environment the mind receives impressions and reacts 
to them by peculiar characteristic processes with more or less 
bodily resonance accompanying them. The receptions of mind 
are the representative processes. The reactions of mind are, in 
part at least, the affective mental states. 

II. Are there two distinct forms of the affective mental states, 
one that we may term sensory feelings and the other that we 
may term emotions? A splitting up of the affective mental proe- 
esses into two groups came very early in the history of modern 
psychology as a logical result of certain principles of the Herbar- 
tian psychology. Strange to say, this distinction arose from cer- 
tain metaphysical principles. According to the Herbartians, we 
have many ideas. These ideas are known to us only as conditions. 
There must, therefore, be something which is conditioned by 
them, that is to say, they must have some underlying substrate. 
Furthermore, in every moment of self-observation we experience 
the fact of its unity, for all our ideas are referred to one unit of 
self-observation and not many. There is always one and the 


THE AFFECTIVE MENTAL STATES 103 


same perceiving ego from moment to moment as well as in the 
present moment. Consequently, according to the Herbartians, 
there is one.substrate of all our mental processes—the one simple 
mind or soul. The soul does not produce its own ideas, therefore 
other simple beings must exist that act upon the soul and cause 
its states of consciousness. Besides the states of consciousness 
which arise from external influences there are others which 
are produced by the interaction of conscious processes. This 
gives rise to two sets of conscious processes, one resulting from 
the interaction between body and mind. These are sensations 
and sensations alone. They are the primitive conscious processes. 
The other set arises from the interaction between mental proc- 
esses. These are the feelings or derived conscious processes. 

It is evident, however, that many of our feelings come to us 
with the sensations themselves. They seem to be produced by 
the interaction between body and mind. The Herbartians were 
forced, therefore, to postulate a group of feelings distinct from 
their derived conscious processes, and this they did by recognizing 
sensations with a tone of feeling. They denied, however, that this 
tone of feeling was a genuine feeling since it did not arise from 
the interaction of ideas. It is, according to them, the inhibition 
or the stimulation of the organic activity of a living being. If 
it inhibits organic activity it 1s unpleasant. If it supports it 
or stimulates it, it is pleasant. Much more recently Stumpf? 
maintained that ‘‘the sensory feelings are as a matter of fact 
nothing more nor less than sensations. They are a class of sen- 
sations which, perhaps, like every other class of sensations has its 
own specific peculiarities but which in all other essential charac- 
teristics and modes of behavior conducts itself like the other 
forms of sensations.’’ 

Wundt’s tridimensional theory of feeling distinguishes be- 
tween the simple feelings and the complex emotions; aithough 
in the earlier editions of his psychology he maintained that feeling 
was a tone of sensation just as intensity and quality are tones or 

attributes of sensation. 


*“ Ueber Gefiihlsempfindungen,” Zeitschrift fiir Psychol. und Physiol. 
der Sinnesorgane, 1907, XLIV, pp. 1-49. 


104 HUMAN EMOTIONAL LIFE 


According to his later theory, subjective analysis points out 
three classes of simple feelings, one class embracing what we 
ordinarily recognize as pleasure and pain. Thus tastes are agree- 
able or disagreeable; colors are pleasant or unpleasant, ete. The 
second class is what he terms excitement or restfulness (or de- 
pression). As an example of simple sensory excitement and rest- 
fulness, he points to the characteristic feeling that we have with 
the presentation of red and blue. A bright red would give an 
altogether different feeling to the observer than would a navy 
blue. This feeling would not be the sensation itself of redness or 
blueness, but something over and above the sensory characteristics. 
The effect of red on the bull is proverbial though called in question 
recently by Stratton.? In recent times it has been recognized that 
color affects the emotional states of depressed patients, and so 
in insane asylums we sometimes have red rooms and blue rooms. 
A third class consists of feelings of tension and relaxation. To 
experience an example of this in its simple sensory form one 
need but listen to the beats of a slowly moving metronome 
or to a clock that is beating seconds. As one waits for the tick 
to occur one experiences just before the moment of its occurrence 
a peculiar feeling of tension. After one hears the tick there is 
a slight feeling of relaxation. An example of all these feelings, 
along with much more complicated processes, might be taken 
from a game of baseball. Suppose a game tied in the twelfth 
inning with the bases full and two men out. A batter comes 
to the plate and drives out a fly which seems to be going way 
beyond the outermost fielder. Immediately there is a tremendous 
excitement for everybody and a high degree of pleasure on the 
side of the batter, but as they notice the fielder turn around and 
run there arises everywhere and becomes dominant a very marked 
degree of tension. This is something different from the excite- 
ment. When the fielder turns around, jumps into the air and 
catches the ball with one hand, the tension at once disappears, the 
critical moment is passed, there is the wildest excitement, but 
along with it there is a distinct feeling of relaxation, on the 
batter’s side especially, for the crisis has passed. There is deep 
4 Red and the Anger of Cattle,’ Psychol. Rev., 1923, XXX, 321-325. _ 


THE AFFECTIVE MENTAL STATES 105 


regret on his side, but intense joy on the other. Thus, we can see 
the distinction between these various forms of sensory feelings 
in a practical example. 

Wundt maintains that no other simple feelings beside these 
ean be found, and that all other feelings can be analyzed into 
them. All three relate to mental states. None of them can be 
localized like sensations nor can their objects be pointed out. 
Unlike sensations also, they are independent of any sense organ 
or any kind of stimulus. At the same time they have the funda- 
mental attributes of quality and intensity, and they have a charac- 
teristic peculiarity in their intensity, each group has two ex- 
tremes of intensity ; each extreme shades over to the other through 
a zero point of indifference. 

The simple feelings, according to Wundt, give rise to complex 
feelings by fusing and producing resultant feelings. These re- 
sultant feelings may fuse and produce resultants of a higher 
order, and these fuse, producing resultants of a still higher order, 
ete. One of the simplest of resultant feelings, according to 
Wundt, is the feeling of well-being. This comes from pleasur- 
able feelings and the lack of all unpleasant ones arising from 
conditions of the organism. 

Each emotion to which we have given a specific name, as joy, 
anger, etc., may be analyzed into curves of three dimensions, just 
as in analytical geometry we might analyze a tridimensional 
curve into three simple components. Thus, according to Wundt, 
there are two classes of affective states; one is simple and the 
other complex. | 

No one will be inclined to doubt the distinction between 
simple sensory feelings and the complex emotional processes. 
The question arises, however, how many simple feelings we have. 
Wundt recognizes that every resultant feeling has its own spe- 
cific tone proper to the complex. There is no evidence which 
shows us conclusively that this specific tone (for instance, the 
tone of impatience in the emotion of anger, the peculiar delight 
in the emotion of joy) is a resultant feeling. It is a pretty 
theory to assume that it arises by the fusion of these simple feel- 
ings, but, for all we know, it may itself be a simple feeling. Can 

8 


106 HUMAN EMOTIONAL LIFE 


we analyze, for instance, the characteristic tone of feeling that 
one experiences in slight impatience into any simpler compon- 
ents? Is it something different from unpleasantness? It seems 
sur generis. It may be accompanied by unpleasantness, but at 
times, under different circumstances, one may experience the 
same unpleasantness but no feeling of impatience. Wundt’s 
theory merely raises the question: How many simple feelings 
do we experience? He names six. He points out furthermore, 
according to his own interpretation, that there is a specifie tone 
of feeling to every resultant feeling. Perhaps all of these specific 
tones are themselves simple feelings. The writer is inclined to 
believe that they are. There is no satisfactory classification for 
them as yet, just as there is no satisfactory classification of odors 
into definite groups. Our emotional life has a complexity of 
qualities similar in extent to the number of characteristic nuances 
that we recognize in sensations of smell. 

To sum up, we may say that we have a number of ‘‘simple’’ 
feelings. The exact number of these simple feelings is unknown. 
Pleasantness and unpleasantness are the simple feelings most 
commonly recognized. Tension and relaxation, excitement and 
depression as described by Wundt are also, in all probability, true 
feelings and not mere complexes of sensation. But besides these 
there may be many others. Impatience, for example, seems 
to be a specific elementary feeling. There are, perhaps, as many 
simple feelings as there are emotions. The emotion itself is a 
complex of its specific quality plus ideas, sensations and impulses. 
The question proposed in this section, therefore, is to be answered 
thus. There are two elementary forms of affective states, feelings 
and emotions. Emotions differ from feelings in that an emotion 
is: (1) Accompanied by a much more complex and extensive 
bodily resonance; (2) an emotion is a reaction to an intellectual 
insight and not to a mere sensation. 

We shall see below that emotions are reactions to intellectual 
insights. The specific feeling of an emotion, therefore, is not a 
reaction to the sensations of perception, but to the meaning of 
aperception. There are some simple feelings which are reactions, 
not to meanings but to mere sensations, e.g., pleasure and pain. 


THE AFFECTIVE MENTAL STATES 107 


It is possible, therefore, to subdivide the affective mental states 
into two classes, (a) affections that arise in response to mere 
sensations, (b) affections that arise in response to meaning. 

Ill. Are the affective mental states attributes of sensation and 
not independent forms of mental life? The attribute or tone 
theory was propounded by Wundt in the first editions of his 
psychology. Lehmann traces it back to Kant, quoting the sentence, 
‘““The subjective element in an idea which can in no manner 
become a piece of knowledge, is the pleasure or pain that is 
united with it.’’* Kant, therefore, according to Lehmann, main- 
tains that feelings are: 

(1) Intimately united with ideas, and 

(2) Contrasted with them inasmuch as they cannot be con- 
sidered knowledge. 

According to Lehmann: * 

(1) ‘‘A pure emotional state does not exist. Pleasure and 
pain are always united with intellectual states.’’ 

(2) ‘‘By the emotional elements or tones of feeling we under- 
stand the psychological abstractions, pleasure and pain, conceived 
of as isolated from the intellectual states and characterized by 
their opposition to them.’’ 

(3) ‘‘By feelings we understand the real psychological states 
which contain both intellectual and emotional elements.”’ 

There are, according to Lehmann, only two emotional elements, 
pleasure and pain. In all emotions one or both of these elements 
are present. One emotion, therefore, is distinguished from 
another not by its affective components but by its representative 
elements. This was once and perhaps still is the most widely 
accepted of psychological theories of the emotions. Against this 
view the following considerations may be urged: 

1. Feeling cannot be an attribute of sensation because it has 
itself the main attributes of sensation. It has, for instance, its 
own specific quality, its own degree of intensity, and its own 
duration. No attribute of sensation has these characteristics as 

* Cites Krittk der Urteilskraft, Kirschmann’s edition, p. 28. 


*Die Hauptgesetze des menschlichen Gefitihlseben, Leipzig, 1892, pp. 
16-17. 


108 HUMAN EMOTIONAL LIFE 


distinct from the sensation itself. Thus, no intensity of sensa- 
tion has an intensity, a quality, and duration of its own. 

ii. If any of the attributes of sensation are reduced to zero, 
the sensation itself is zero, but a sensation may lose entirely its 
feeling tone without disappearing. 

iii. All the attributes of a sensation have their counterpart 
in the stimulus. Thus, the intensity of a sensation of sound has 
its counterpart in the amplitude of the vibrations in the air by 
which it is produced. The pitch or quality of the tone has its 
counterpart in the number of vibrations per second, the duration 
of the sensation its counterpart in the length of time that the 
sounding body vibrates. -Pleasure and pain, however, have no 
counterpart in the sensation. Thus, while all the recognized 
attributes of sensation have definite objective references, pleas- 
ure and pain have no objective references but an altogether sub- 
jective character. They are not, therefore, attributes of sensation. 

IV. Are the affective mental states sensations? This theory, 
as we have seen, is maintained by Stumpf for a group of feelings 
that are at least intimately connected with sensations. Others 
have gone so far as to maintain that all affective mental states 
are nothing more than sensations. Something akin to this is 
implied in the Lange-James position, to be criticised later, which 
holds that emotions consist in the perception of the sensations 
that constitute the bodily resonance. 

Against the view that affective states are a specific form of 
sensations we may urge the following considerations: 

(1) All other known sensations (except the supposed ‘‘sen- 
sation’’ of feeling) have their sense organs. There is no sense 
organ for pleasure and pain. A sensation without a sense organ 
seems something of a chimerical assumption. 

(2) Not only have pleasure and pain no sense organ, but they 
may be produced by the stimulation of any sense organ. But, 
sensations are specific. We are not justified in supposing 
the existence of a peculiar sensation so general in its character- 
istics that it may arise from the stimulation of any sense 
organ whatsoever. 


THE AFFECTIVE MENTAL STATES 109 


(8) A sensation is produced directly by the external stimulus. 
A feeling, however, seems to be more indirectly produced by a 
conscious state on account of which one is affected in one way 
or another. It is our reaction to this conscious state or reaction 
to a sensation and not the sensation itself. 

(4) Sensations may be localized. Feelings as such cannot 
be. I may indeed have a painful sensation. This sensation may 
be localized, but I cannot say that my displeasure at the sensation 
is localized. 

(5) Feelings are subjective; sensations objective. Thus, in 
knowing we distinguish the subject who knows and the object 
which is known. In feeling, however, we cannot make such a dis- 
tinction because there is no object of knowledge. Thus, I can 
say of a sensation that I see the bright blue sky, but I cannot 
say, ‘‘I am the bright blue sky.’’ On the other hand I say, ‘‘I 
am happy; I am sad, or I am angry,’’ ete.® 

V. To what extent do representative mental processes enter 
mto the complexes of feeling that we term emotions? In our 
strong emotions of joy, of anger, ete., there is present something 
more than the mere sensation that gives rise to it. Thus, if one 
is slapped in the face, the painful sensation may be disagreeable 
and give rise therefore to a simple feeling of unpleasantness, but 
this in itself is not enough to produce anger. For instance, in 
play one might be slapped in the face, and there would be no 
anger whatsoever, but if a man slaps one as an expression 
of contempt, it produces an entirely different emotional state. 
This emotional state is dependent upon an insight into the situa- 
tion and knowledge of an external individual and his relation- 
ships to the one who experiences the emotion. Such an insight 
transcends completely the qualities of sense. It is an intel- 
lectual something and not sensory. So, also, with all our 
emotions. They are insights and memories of a very complex 
nature which lie at the root of the emotion and which rise and 
fall in consciousness during the emotional outbreak, giving rise 

to renewed intensity by their repeated occurrence. In his book, 


°Cf, Very excellent treatment of feeling in Frobes, J., Lehrbuch der 
experimentellen Psychologie. 


110 HUMAN EMOTIONAL LIFE 


Das Gemiith, Juangmann has brought out very clearly this ele- 
ment in the emotional complexity by the following example: 

‘“ As the prince of the Apostles denied his Master for the third 
time on the night of His passion—the cock crowed. And the 
Lord turned around and looked at Peter. And Peter remem- 
bered the word that the Lord had spoken to him, ‘Before the 
cock crows thou wilt deny Me thrice.’ And he went out and 
wept bitterly! In this case what was the object of the activity 
of the intellect that was followed by the emotion—the pain of 
the Apostle’s remorse? The Evangelist has indicated it clearly 
enough. Peter remembered the word that the Lord had spoken 
to him. He thought of his Master and the happy days he had 
spent at His side—of the words of salvation that he had heard 
from His mouth, of the sublime graces he had received from Him. 
Those last hours came up before his mind which belonged to this 
very night of his own infidelity and cowardice—those hours of 
tender farewell, of the divine love, of the incomprehensible con- 
descension, of the first unbloody sacrifice of the New Testament, 
of the trembling and the agony of approaching death and the 
bloody sweat. And when over against all this he held up his 
thrice-repeated sin, he felt deep down in his heart how unworthily 
he had acted, because he had been ashamed of his Master and his 
God, because he had been false to the fidelity he had sworn and 
had torn asunder the bond of his friendship and his love. These 
were the thoughts that filled his soul with so much bitterness. 
This was the evil, the idea of which sunk his soul in a sea of 
burning pain. These were the goods on account of whose loss the 
tears of remorse streamed from his eyes. That such thoughts the 
reasoning soul alone is capable of thinking, that of such goods 
sense has no intimation, that such an evil would not worry the 
lower self, all that certainly needs no proof.’” 

Jungmann defines an emotion as ‘‘a simultaneous activity of 
both appetitive faculties—the higher and the lower—called forth 
by the actual knowledge of a good or evil, which as such reason 
alone can understand.’’” 


*Jungmann, Joseph, Das Gemiith, Freiburg, 1885, pp. 88-89. 
*Jungmann, Joseph, Das Gemiith, Freiburg, 1885, p. 92. 


THE AFFECTIVE MENTAL STATES ill 


The presence of an intellectual element as the cause of an 
emotion over and above the sensation seems to be a necessary 
postulate. If this is so, animals probably have no emotions in 
the sense in which emotion applies to human affective reactions, 
for it appears from the data of animal psychology that dogs, 
cats, rats, etc., have no intellectual appreciation of the problems 
they are given to solve, but learn them by the development of 
habits of reaction without insight. Human emotion has as its 
cause and its root an intellectual insight. It is not, therefore, 
merely dependent upon sensation. 

VI. Is the bodily resonance the cause or the effect of the 
emotion? By bodily resonance is here understood the many 
phenomena which go to make up what is usually termed the 
expression of the emotion. That is to say, the activity of the 
facial muscles, the changes in the rate of heart-beat and of its 
intensity, the changes in respiration, the visceral effects, the 
glandular secretions, such as the beads of perspiration, or the 
paralysis of secretions, such as the dry throat, ete. These phe- 
nomena, constitute bodily resonance. From the days of Aristotle, 
through medieval philosophy, down almost to the present, these 
phenomena have been looked upon as the effects of the emotion 
and not its cause—as the emotional expression and not its con- 
stituent elements. In the nineteenth century two men at approxi- 
mately the same time put forward the view that the ordinary 
interpretation of the situation is Just the reverse of what it 
should be—that a perception produces a bodily resonance and 
this bodily resonance produces the emotion, or rather that the 
perception of the bodily resonance is the emotion. According 
to the traditional view, the perception produces the emotion and 
the emotion produces a bodily resonance. The new theory is 
named after the two men who first propounded it and is there- 
fore termed the Lange-James theory of the emotions. James 
states the theory as follows: 

‘Our natural way of thinking about these coarser emotions 
is that the mental perception of some fact excites mental affec- 
tion called the emotion, and that this latter state of mind gives 
rise to the bodily expression. My theory, on the contrary, is 


112 HUMAN EMOTIONAL LIFE 


that the bodily changes follow directly the perception of the 
exciting fact, and that our feeling of the same changes as they 
occur, is the emotion.’’ ® | 

According to this view, therefore, it is more true to say that 
we are afraid because our hair stands on end rather than our 
hair stands on end because we are afraid; that we are sorry be- 
cause we ery rather than we cry because we are sorry. To put 
the matter in James’ own words: 

‘‘Common sense says, we lose our fortune, we are sorry and 
weep ; we meet a bear, are frightened and run; we are insulted by 
a rival, are angry and strike. The hypothesis here to be defended 
says that this order of sequence is incorrect, that the one mental 
state is not immediately induced by the other, that the bodily 
manifestations must first be interposed between, and that the 
more rational statement is that we feel sorry because we ery, 
angry because we strike, afraid because we tremble; and not 
that we ery, strike, or tremble because we are sorry, angry, or 
fearful, as the case may be. Without the bodily states following 
on the perception, the latter could be purely cognitive in form, 
pale, colorless, destitute of emotional warmth. We might then 
see the bear and judge it best to run, receive the insult and deem 
it right to strike, but we should not actually feel afraid or angry. 

‘<Stated in this crude way, the hypothesis is pretty sure to meet 
with immediate disbelief. And yet neither many nor far-fetched 
considerations are required to mitigate its paradoxical character, 
and possibly to produce conviction of its truth.’’ ® 

James’ proof of his theory is developed in an argument which 
may be summed up in three fundamental statements: 

(1) ‘‘Objects do excite bodily changes . . . so indefinite, nu- 
merous, and subtle that the entire organsm may be called a 
sounding board which every change of consciousness, however 
slight, may make reverberate.’ 1° 

This statement is proved by the citation of numerous examples 
of the bodily resonance. 

* James, William, Psychology (Briefer Course), 1907, p. 375. 


° James, William, Psychology (Briefer Course), 1907, pp. 375-376. 
* Principles of Psychology, Vol. II, Ch. xxxv, p. 450. 


THE AFFECTIVE MENTAL STATES 113 


In order, however, to prove the Lange-James theory, it is not 
sufficient to cite the fact of bodily resonance, but it is necessary 
to show its position in the temporal sequence of perception, 
resonance, and emotion. Does the emotion commence prior to 
the bodily resonance or is it perceived only at the time the subject 
perceives the bodily resonance or somewhat afterward? The 
effect cannot precede its cause in a temporal sequence of events. 
The all-important matter in deciding between the traditional 
and the new theory is precisely this temporal sequence. No mass- 
ing of citations which refer only to the fact of bodily resonance 
suffices to clear up the problem of temporal sequence. 

(2) “‘Every one of the bodily changes whatsoever vt be 1s 
felt, acutely or obscurely, the moment vt occwrs.’’ 

James proves this by an appeal to introspection. Here again 
the fact is common property. According to the traditional view 
as well as the Lange-James theory, the bodily resonance is per- 
eeived. There is no dispute about the perception of the bodily 
resonance. Everybody admits this. What we want to find out 
is whether or not the perception of the bodily resonance causes 
the emotion or the emotion causes the bodily resonance which 
is then perceived as a further element in the affective complex. 

(3) “‘If we fancy some strong emotion and then try to ab- 
stract, from our consciousness of it, all the feelings of its bodily 
symptoms, we have nothing left behind.’’ 

This James proves by an appeal to introspection: 

‘‘What kind of an emotion of fear would be left if the feeling 
neither of quickened heart-beats nor of shallow breathing, neither 
of trembling lips nor of weakened limbs, neither of goose-flesh 
nor of visceral stirrings, were present, it is quite impossible for 
me to think. Can one fancy the state of rage and picture no 
ebullition in the chest, no flushing of the face, no dilation of the 
nostrils, no clenching of the teeth, no impulse to vigorous action, 
but in their stead limp muscles, calm breathing, and a placid face? 
The present writer, for one, certainly cannot. The rage is as 
— completely evaporated as the sensation of its so-called manifesta- 

tions, and the only thing that can be supposed to take its place 
is some cold-blooded and dispassionate judicial sentence, confined 


114 HUMAN EMOTIONAL LIFE 


entirely to the intellectual realm, to the effect that a certain per- 
son or persons merit chastisement for their sins. In like manner of 
grief, what would it be without its tears, its sobs, its suffocation of 
the heart, its pang in the breast-bone? A feelingless cognition that 
certain circumstances are deplorable, and nothing more. Every 
passion in turn tells the same story. A disembodied human 
emotion is a sheer nonenity.’”*! 

It is quite true that we cannot imagine an emotion without 
its bodily expression any more than we can imagine ourselves 
standing by a hot fire without getting warm. And still, when we 
stand by a hot fire, the fire is the cause of our warmth and not 
our warmth the cause of the fire. We cannot imagine a cause 
operating without producing its effect. If we attempt to rid our 
imagination of the picture of the effect we spirit away the cause. 
James has simply pointed out in this stage of his argument that 
there is a causal relation between the emotion and its resonance. 
Everybody admits this. The question is which is cause and which 
is effect. James’ argument does not help us to decide the point 
at issue. For even though I cannot imagine an emotion without 
its bodily expression, this does not prove that the emotion is the 
result of the bodily expression. For the reason why I cannot 
imagine myself in a great rage without certain bodily disturb- 
ances is that I cannot imagine a cause acting without producing 
its effect. 

James maintains that there has been no experimental test 
of his theory. This would require, he says, a patient who would be 
absolutely anesthetic inside and out. He knew of only three such 
eases. In two, he said, there were no data as to the emo- 
tional states. The third, he said, seemed to have manifested 
some emotion. This he explains by the supposition that this 
patient’s emotional expressions may have been accompanied by a 
cold heart. It might be interesting, therefore, to examine what 
we know about the expression of the emotions in the light of the 
Lange-James theory. 

Are the emotions produced by the perception of the bodily 
resonance or is the bodily resonance the effect of an emotional 

™ James, William, Psychology (Briefer Course), 1907, pp. 379-380. 


THE AFFECTIVE MENTAL STATES 115 


state? In the chapter that follows, we shall consider individually 
the various types of emotional expression, and we shall ask 
ourselves whether or not any one of these forms can possibly con- 
stitute the main element in the emotion. It is practically impos- 
sible to find a living human subject who is completely anesthetic 
both inside and out, as James admits, for the test of his theory. 
Such a patient, were the condition cerebral, would have to have 
a lesion completely separating the cortex from the subcortical 
ganglia. Such a patient would probably not live, and if he did 
live, he would be unable to tell us anything about his emotions. 
Were the lesion lower down, it would have to be multiple and in- 
volve all the sensory cranial nerves, both cervical sympatheties, 
both vagi, as well as a cord lesion involving a complete sensory in- 
terruption. This would have to be below the origin of the 
phrenics in order that respiration might be maintained. <A 
patient suffering from such multiple lesions would probably not 
live, and if he did, it is not likely that his vocal apparatus would 
be left intact and that his intelligence would remain unim- 
paired to give us a reliable account of his emotional states. It is 
very likely that most cases which have been reported of complete 
external and internal anesthesia are not organic but of an hys- 
terical nature. From an hysterical patient we might learn any- 
thing that our theory of emotions would suggest. Cases such as 
those reported by M. d’Allonnes?” are evidently of an hysterical 
nature. The woman he speaks of complained of being unable 
to feel either good or evil, content or regret. She said that she 
was ‘‘just like a dressed-up broomstick.’’ His account of the 
ease and the physical examination indicate an hysterical condi- 
tion rather than an organic lesion. Only an organic loss of sen- 
sibility would suffice to test the Lange-James theory, because if 
one found a functional loss of sensibility and there accompanied 
it a loss of emotions, this also might be functional and due not 
to the loss of sensibility but to the factors which lay at the basis 
of the hysteria. 


1 q’Allonnes, R. G., “ Role des sensations internes dans les émotions et 
dans la perception de la durée,” Revue philosophique, 1905, IX, pp. 592-623. 


CHAPTER II 
THE EXPRESSION OF THE EMOTIONS 


I. Facial Expression.—One of the most characteristic expres- 
sions of emotion is afforded by the play of the facial 
musculature.* 

In 1807, Moreau (Traité de physionome) divided emotions 
into convulsive, oppressive, and expansive. Convulsive emotions 
were supposed to cause a general action of all the muscles of the 
face; the oppressive emotions cause a loss of tonus in the muscles 
of the face and therefore a lengthening of the face such as we 
see in the depressions. The expansive emotions, according to 
Moreau, produced an increase of tonus in the facial muscles and 
therefore a widening of the face, as in joy, pleasure. 

In 1844, Charles Bell, in his Anatomy and Philosophy of 
Expression, put forward the view that the activity of the facial 
muscles is intimately connected with the action of the heart and 
lungs. The mouth and nose are organs of respiration. Respira- 
tion affects the movements of the mouth and the nose as well as 
the circulation. The circulation in turn affects respiration. 
Through the interplay of respiratory and circulatory functions 
the facial muscles are thrown into the activity of emotional 
expression. 

In 1862, Duchenne of Boulogne published his Mechanisme de 
la phystonome humaine. This classical work put forward the 
view that each emotion has its typical expression. This expression 
is brought about by the activity of one or at most a few facial 
muscles. This view is demonstrated by photographs of facial 
expressions that were caused solely by electrical stimulation of 
the muscles involved. His subject was an elderly man who had 
lost pain sensibility in the face. The skin of the face could, 
therefore, be stimulated by a faradic current without causing 





* For a history of the theories of physiognomy, cf. Audibert, A. C. M., 
“Etude sur la physionomie,” Thése Bordeauw, 1892-8, No. 26, p. 120. 
116 


2 Procerus ay Frontalis 1 







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q Dd Z We Ne Z Wa) Levator labii superioris 
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Levator mentt 14 


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Fig. 3—MUSCLES OF EXPRESSION. 


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THE EXPRESSION OF THE EMOTIONS 117 


pain. It was, therefore, possible to stimulate his facial muscles 
without any tendency to cloud the effect by the expression of 
pain due to the stimulation itself. Anyone who has examined 
the photographs that Duchenne has given will recognize what 
excellent imitations they are of real emotional expressions. Thus, 
he found that the muscle of attention is the frontalis; the 
muscle of reflection, the orbicularis oculi (superior portion) ; 
the muscle of pain, the corrugator supercilii; the muscle of 
ageression, the pyramidalis nasi; the muscle of lasciviousness, the 
transversalis nasi; the muscle of joy and benevolence, the 
inferior portion of the orbicularis oculi and the zygomaticus 
major, ete. 

According to Duchenne, stimulation of the nerve trunk of 
the facialis can cause only a grimace and not an emotional expres- 
sion. To obtain the emotional expression, one must stimulate 
definite muscles or groups of muscles at their points of election. 
If this is the case, and it seems likely that it is, the emotional 
expression must be elaborated somewhere within the encephalon. 

G. Dumas? attempted to show that any light stimulation of 
the facial nerve would cause asmile. He gives three photographs 
of the results obtained. Two of these would seem rather to bear 
out the view of Duchenne that stimulation of the facial nerve 
produces a grimace, but not an emotional expression. In only 
one of the photographs does the expression resemble a smile, 
and this he admits was the best he was able to obtain. The 
smile in this case is a sickly smile, lacking in the smile of the 
eyes. Duchenne pointed this out as characteristic of the artificial 
or society smile. Anyone can raise the corners of his lips when 
he pleases, but he cannot when he pleases produce the merry 
twinkle of the eyes which is caused by the contraction of the 
orbicularis oculi. It would seem, therefore, that Dumas’ 
theory, that any light stimulation of the facial nerve causes a 
smile, is unlikely. The emotional expression is elaborated in the 
central nervous system and is specific in character for each emo- 
tion. It is not the mere overfiow of stimulation into motor chan- 
nels of outlet. 


2“Te sourire,” Revue philosophique, 1904, LVIII, pp. 1-23, 186-151. ma 


118 HUMAN EMOTIONAL LIFE 


The experiments of Bechterew*® would indicate that the 
elaboration of the emotional expression is not in the cortex but 
probably in the optic thalamus and perhaps also in parts of the 
lenticular and caudate nuclei. Bechterew separated the cortex 
from the optic thalamus in animals and found that mimicry was 
still possible with them. This, he says, was so in spite of their loss 
of intelligence and emotional life. It is hard to see how Bechterew 
proved that emotions were not present in these animals. He 
points out that mimicry was still possible with them. That is 
to say, they acted and behaved like animals experiencing an 
emotion. How does he know that they did not experience it? 
He simply assumes that the emotion was absent because the cortex 
was separated from the whole central nervous system from the 
thalamus down. His argument for assuming that the emotional 
expressions in these animals is pure mimicry was, first, because 
the uninjured animal often makes them spontaneously without 
sensory. or visceral stimulation, but the animal deprived of its 
hemispheres makes these movements solely in response to exter- 
nal stimuli. Secondly, the uninjured animal is capable of in- 
hibiting its facial movements in the presence of an external stimu- 
lus, but the thalamic animal is not. These considerations only 
show, however, that the cortex exercises an influence on facial 
expression. They do not show conclusively that the thalamic 
animal is absolutely devoid of emotional life. 

Something akin to Bechterew’s experiments with animals 
happens occasionally when a human being is afflicted with a thala- 
mic lesion. In such cases we do not have the thalamus separated 
from the cortex, but we have a state of hyperactivity in the thala- 
mus. Such patients, on wholly inadequate provocation, in spite 
of themselves, break out into spasmodic laughing or erying. To 
the observer, they seem to be affected by the most violent sorrow 
or hilarious joy. If the Lange-James theory is correct, these 
individuals should experience the emotion corresponding to the 
outward expression, but, as a matter of fact, when thalamic 
patients burst out into laughter or into sobbing and tears, the 
only emotion they experience is one of shame for making such 
- * Fide d’Allonnes, Journal de psychologie, 1906, III, pp. 132-107. 










No action 
of facial 
muscles 







Disgust Astonishment 


No twinkle 
of eyes 


Lowering 
of jaw 





Affected smile True smile Laugh 
Fra. 4. MUSCLES OF EXPRESSION IN ACTION. 


Numbers are those of muscles shown in Fig. 3. Each emotion is associated with a 
specific group of tension areas in the skin, whose production is due to a definite kinetic unit 
(see Part VI, Ch. iv). The function of the emotional kinetic units is to manifest the sub- 
ject’s feelings to others, not to reveal them to himself. 


“4 





THE EXPRESSION OF THE EMOTIONS 119 


fools of themselves. They are neither gay nor sad, but are forced 
- against their will to give forth the most violent expressions of 
intense sorrow or joy. Otto Spiegel reports: 

‘*The laughing is not the effect of mental abnormalities, but 

_ takes place without a happy idea and feeling of pleasure. 
_ Oppenheim has followed up this symptom carefully and has 
come to the conclusion that this laughter which takes place against 
the patient’s will is to be numbered among the common symptoms 
(of multiple sclerosis) and is often present early in the disease.’’ 
‘*But,’’ he continues, ‘‘the inclination to passionate, convulsive 
outbreaks is by no means always present. But this mimicry is 
called forth only more easily than in healthy days and without a 
corresponding occasion. Its duration and intensity are generally 
more or less reinforced. 

‘*On the basis of the cases I have studied, I have come to the 
same conclusions. This forced laughing was present in seven 
- cases (out of thirty-four) and was experienced by the patients as 
_ really painful. Thus, a patient told me that it cost him a great 
deal of trouble during the period of his military service to sup- 
press his laughter. And he designated this involuntary emotional 
expression as most tormenting.’”? 

The pathological data of the phenomena of forced laughing 
and crying give negative evidence, therefore, against the Lange- 
James theory. Where one would expect to find confirmation of 
the theory, one discovers that the perception of bodily resonance 
does not constitute the emotion. , 

We may now ask whether or not facial expression helps to 
give a specific character to the whole emotional complex. It seems 
that it may be one of the elements in determining the peculiar 
specific characteristic of a definite emotional complex. The facial 
- expression certainly varies with every emotion. This expression 
is produced mainly by the activity of one muscle or a group of 
muscles. Other muscles act in a secondary manner, reinforcing 
the effect of the principals. It is also true that we are conscious, 
- though only dimly conscious, of the tension of these facial muscles 








‘ Ueber psychischen Stérungen bei der disseminierten Sklerose, Berlin, 
1891, III, p. 27. 


120 HUMAN EMOTIONAL LIFE 


—a tension which varies in its locality and distribution with every 
emotion. If we ask ourselves whether or not the emotion con- 
sists in the perception of this facial expression, it must seem to 
impartial introspection that the perception of this facial tension, 
so obscurely conscious, is a very small element in the complex 
experience of the emotion. It may help to specify that experience, 
but its aid is unimportant and almost negligible. Persons suffer- 
ing from a unilateral facial paralysis certainly do not have their 
emotional life reduced one-half by such a trauma, nor could 
we get rid of a depression or influence perceptibly a person’s 
normal emotional life by sectioning both facial nerves. We can- 
not hope, therefore, to get very far with the explanation of our 
emotional life by confining ourselves to a study of the tension of 
the facial muscles. 

II. Cardiovascular and Respiratory Changes.—The changes 
in respiration, increase in its frequency, variation in its depth or 
shallowness; variations in the rate and frequency of the heart- 
beat ; rise and fall of the blood pressure are phenomena which con- 
stitute a considerable portion of the bodily resonance of our 
emotions. It is possible for us to study them experimentally by 
two pieces of apparatus, the plethysmograph and the pneumo- 
eraph. The plethysmograph was first used by the Italian phys- 
lologist, Mosso. It consists of a glass cylinder. One end of the 
cylinder is closed except for a stop-cock through which water may 
be let in or out. The other end is open and provided with some 
kind of rubber cuff, or sleeve, into which the arm may be placed, 
and by means of whic!: the water in the cylinder is prevented 
from escaping. From the top of the cylinder projects a small 
tube into which the water rises when the cylinder is somewhat 
overfilled with water. The column of water in this tube rises 
and falls with each beat of the heart. It also rises and falls with 
increase and decrease in the volume of blood in the arm. This 
volume of blood in the arm is dependent upon the distribution 
of the blood in the rest of the body, which is again dependent 
upon the distribution of the vascular tension. This vascular ten- 
sion varies in emotional states. By this apparatus, therefore, we 
have a means of studying the cardiovascular changes present in 


a 





Courtesy Wundt’s Elements of Physiological Psychology (Engelmann). 


Fig. 5.—Respiratory and volume-pulse curve during a weak pleasant-unpleasant emotional 
state. At (a) transition from pleasant to unpleasant mood. 





Courtesy Wundt’s Elements of Physiological Psychology (Engelmann). 
Fig. 6.—Respiratory and volume-pulse curve following an emotion of fear. 





THE EXPRESSION OF THE EMOTIONS 121 


the emotions. A curve of these changes is obtained by connecting 
the top of the tube with a recording device known as a Marey tam- 
bour. This. consists of a shallow metal cup covered above with 
a rubber diaphragm. The wall of the cup is pierced by a little 
tube which connects by a rubber tube with the top of the tube of 
the plethysmograph. It is readily seen that when the volume of 
the arm increases, the water in the tube of the plethysmograph 
rises and forces the diaphragm upward. <A lever connected with 
the top of this diaphragm moves up and down, therefore, with 
the water in the plethysmograph. This lever writes on the 
smoked paper of a revolving drum or kymograph, and thus a 
curve of the cardiovascular changes is obtained. 

The pneumograph consists essentially of some kind of an elas- 
_ tie tube or capsule which is placed around the chest of a subject. 
The interior of this tube or capsule is connected by rubber tubing 
with a Marey tambour. It is evident that with the expansion and 
contraction of the chest pressure is exerted upon the tube or cap- 
sule and air is forced out of the pneumograph or sucked back into 
it. This current of air operates the diaphragm of the Marey tam- 
bour which records the movements of respiration on the smoked 
paper of a revolving drum or kymograph. 

One may experiment upon the emotional expressions in 
two ways: 

(1) He may attempt to produce the emotion by external 
stimuli. This is easily possible for the simpler feelings of pleas- 
ure or pain. It is rather difficult for the more complex ones of 
joy, anger, ete. 

(2) The experimenter may tell the subject to imagine some- 
thing which makes him sorrowful or sad and indicate the moment 
when he first feels his emotion by pressing some kind of a record- 
ing device. 

According to the Lange-James theory of the emotions, one 
should experience the emotion after or at least simultaneously 
with the cardiovascular and respiratory changes, but, as a matter 
of fact, these changes take place always after experiencing the 

affective state. There is a definite interval which elapses between 
the stimulus causing pleasure or pain or between the movement 

9 


122 HUMAN EMOTIONAL LIFE 


made by the subject which indicates his emotion and the subse- 
quent rise and fall of the lever indicating a change of blood 
volume in the arm. | 

Experiments in hypnotism with suggested emotions give re- 
sults which have some bearing upon the Lange-James theory of 
emotions. A suggested feeling such as a pleasant taste or a bad 
smell or a pain in the arm has no sensory cause which could re- 
flexly determine the emotional expression. If the Lange-James 
theory is correct and the perception of the changes constitute the 
bodily resonance, then we should expect that it would come defi- 
nitely later than the changes recorded by the plethysmograph 
and the pneumograph. Experiments on this subject were made 
by the writer in association with Doctor Winch at the University 
of California. We found that suggested feelings produced quali- 
tatively the same plethysmographic and pneumographie changes 
as feelings caused by actual sensations. There was no doubt, 
therefore, about the expression of the suggested feeling being 
identical with that of the real feeling caused by actual stimulation. 
The plethysmographic changes come definitely after the suggestion 
and at approximately the same interval of time as elapsed between 
the sensory stimulation and the cardiovascular and respiratory 
changes. ‘There can be no cause of these changes except a mental 
state. The changes are not suggested by the experimenter, but 
the emotion. It would seem, therefore, that suggested emotions 
produce the bodily changes and not that the bodily changes pro- 
duce the suggested emotion. 

We may now ask ourselves whether or not the cardiovascular 
and respiratory changes are specific in nature so that they vary 
with our different emotions. There can be no doubt that, in gen- 
eral, pleasant emotions slow and strengthen the pulse, unpleasant 
ones accelerate and weaken the pulse. Pleasant emotions, in 
general, accelerate breathing, unpleasant ones in general retard 
it. One will find variations from these characteristic changes in 
a series of experiments, but they may well be due to the clouding 
of one simple feeling by effects that are due to concomitant men- 
tal states. Wundt goes so far as to point out definite specific 
changes for all of his six forms of feeling. He claims that charac- 


THE EXPRESSION OF THE EMOTIONS 123 


teristic respiratory and cardiovascular changes are to be found 
for these six forms of feeling in accordance with the accompany- 
ing schema. Other observers have not been able to confirm the 
results that were obtained in his laboratory. It may be, however, 
that variations from the schema are due to clouding of a simple 
feeling by the presence of other feelings in consciousness. At 








Pulse 
Strengthened Weakened 
Retarded Accelerated Retarded Accelerated 
Pleasure Excitement Relaxation Tension Restfulness lua 
Weakened Strengthened _ Strengthened Weakened 
Accelerated Retarded 
Respiration _ 


best, however, the extent to which cardiovascular and respira- 
tory changes are characteristic and specific to each emotion is a 
matter of serious doubt. 

Quite another problem arises when we ask ourselves, can the 
perception of these changes constitute the emotion itself? Against 
this supposition is the fact that for milder intensities of feeling 
the normal subject is not aware of any change in the action of his 
heart or of his respiration. He is, however, experiencing an 
emotional state and has no difficulty in reporting this as a fact 
of introspection. Whether or not his blood pressure is rising or 
falling, whether his heart is beating more or less intensely or 
with increased or reduced rapidity—of all this he has no inkling. 
Changes, therefore, that we may record, but of which we are 
not aware, cannot be looked upon as facts of experience the con- 
sciousness of which constitutes our affective mental states. It 
would, therefore, seem that while cardiovascular and respiratory 
phenomena may to some extent be specific for different feelings 
and emotions, nevertheless, the dim perception of these changes 
cannot be looked upon as constituting the emotion itself. At 
_most the perception of these changes can be an element in the 
sequence of events of intense emotional experiences. Here in all 
probability they become a very perceptible element in the bodily 


124 HUMAN EMOTIONAL LIFE 


resonance and they may help to give to the emotion its peculiar 
characteristic, specific tone. 

III. Visceral Changes.-—-The perception of visceral changes 
comes to us, in the main, from afferent impulses that are brought 
to the sensory nervous system by sympathetic fibres which pass 
from the sympathetic ganglia by way of the gray rami commumn- 
cantes to the posterior roots of the spinal cord. Besides this 
route there is another. A considerable number of impulses get 
to the brain through the vagus and the glossopharyngeal nerves. 
Sherrington has made some experiments on dogs® which indicate 
that the perception of these visceral changes has nothing to do 
with the apparent emotional life of these animals. Sherrington 
severed the spinal cord of five puppies in the lower cervical 
region. This cuts off all visceral sensation except those that are 
mediated by the vagus and the glossopharyngeal. During many 
months of observation the dogs manifested no change whatever 
in their emotional behavior. Impartial observers were unable 
to detect any difference in their behavior from that of normal 
dogs. In two of the animals he later on cut both of the vagi. 
The emotional behavior of these animals remained entirely 
unaffected. There are two possible interpretations of Sherring- 
ton’s experiment. 

(1) We may assume that the emotional expressions mani- 
fested after the operation represented true emotions. If this 
is so, then the perception of the visceral changes has nothing to 
do with an emotion. 

(2) The emotional expressions were merely mechanical re- 
flexes and real emotions were lacking in these animals because 
the visceral changes were unperceived. If we assume that emo- 
tions were lacking in these operated animals, we must also assume 
that the perception by these animals of their emotional expres- 
sions could not constitute the emotion. 

In other words, Sherrington’s experiment, while not conclu- 
sive, rules out either the visceral changes or the facial expressions, 
the prickig up the ears, ete., as the essential constituent ele- 
ments of the emotions. 

° Proc. Roy. Soc., London, 1900, Vol. LXVI, pp. 390-403. 


THE EXPRESSION OF THE EMOTIONS 125 


The problem cannot be solved by animal experiment for we 
ean never learn from the animal whether or not it has any emo- 
tions. In human beings, however, who have suffered a fracture 
of the spine, producing a complete interruption somewhere in the 
cervical region of the cord, we do not find that their sorrow 
over their plight, their despair, their chagrin, their depression 
when they look forward to the future of incurable paralytics, 
are any less than that of other patients who because of some 
other injury are incapacitated for life. Loss, therefore, of all 
the visceral sensations except those mediated by the vagus or 
glossopharyngeal does not deaden the emotional life of human 
subjects. He would be a rash theorist indeed who would attempt 
- to lessen the inner depression of the spinal paralytic by suggesting 
a sectioning of the vagi. 

When James said® ‘‘that the best proof that the immediate 
cause of emotion is a physical effect on the nerves is furnished by 
those pathological cases in which the emotion is objectless,’’ he 
should have considered that a patient’s mode of action often 
seems objectless to us and wholly unmotivated because we do not 
know his inner trend of thought. The deeper we study the 
abnormal mind, the more we find that bizarre and unreasonable 
types of behavior have their roots in definite complexes which 
are often unconscious, at least in their relation to the subject’s 
behavior. It is the complex which produces their apparently 
unmotivated emotional states. As for patients that he refers to, 
who suffer from precordial anxiety, modern psychoanalysis has 
found psychogenic factors in precisely this type of case. This 
anxiety is due to a buried complex and this buried complex pro- 
ducing the anxiety causes the cardiac changes. In other cases 
in which there is an organic basis such as in angina pectoris, the 
cause of the patient’s anxiety is not merely the sensations he 
experiences in the cardiac region but also the fact that he realizes 
that some day he is going to die in one of these attacks. This 
_ knowledge of the fatal nature of his disease produces his anxiety. 
Were this knowledge absent, were there no intellectual grounds 


* Psychology (Briefer Course), 1907, p. 377. 


126 HUMAN EMOTIONAL LIFE 


for fear, he might experience pain indeed, but he would not be 
anxious about his condition. 

Walter B. Cannon’ has given us a new method of studying 
cause and effect in the visceral changes of emotional resonance. 
He attempted to find out whether or not adrenalin is secreted 
in the emotions and what effect it has upon the bodily changes 
which are known to accompany the various emotions. To do 
this he made some very interesting experiments on cats. With 
ethyl chloride he anesthetized the skin directly over the femoral 
vein, high in the groin. With this anesthetic and by gently 
handling the animal it was possible to manipulate it without 
causing any emotional disturbance whatsoever. The femoral vein 
was bared, cleared and opened, and a long, fine, flexible catheter 
lubricated with vaseline was passed into it and thence through 
the iliac vein and vena cava to a point where the opening in the 
catheter was about at the level of the opening of the renal vein 
into the vena cava. In this way blood could be withdrawn prac- 
tically from the renal vein without disturbing the animal. Cannon 
says that he has known cats to purr gently during the whole opera- 
tion. The presence of adrenalin in the blood was determined phys- 
iologically with a special apparatus for recording the movements 
of a short segment of a rabbit’s intestine. If a substance contain- 
ing adrenalin is added to the solution in which this intestinal loop 
is Suspended, it produces a series of contractions. So sensitive is 
this procedure that adrenalin may be detected by it with dilutions 
as great as one part in 200,000,000. By this apparatus one may 
compare the effects of normal blood obtained from the renal vein 
when the animal was unexcited, with blood taken during the 
excitement of some emotion. To produce this excitement, the 
animal might be etherized or a vicious dog brought before the 
eat tied down on its board, ete. We are thus provided with a 
new method of studying the effects of the emotions. 

Cannon points out the following physiological effects of 
the emotions: 

(1) The secretion of adrenalin. In every violent emotion 
whatsoever adrenalin is poured out from the adrenal glands into 


ee ee ee ne ee a ee Se Ea ee ee I 


* Bodily Changes in Pain, Hunger, Fear and Rage, New York, 1915. | 


THE EXPRESSION OF THE EMOTIONS 127 


the blood. This secretion of adrenalin is the ultimate cause of 
all the other effects that he enumerates. 

(2) The increase of blood sugar. In normal individuals sugar 
is present in the blood from 0.06 = 0.1 per cent. When sugar 
is present to this extent none escapes in the urine. If it rises 
higher than 0.2 = 0.3, sugar is found in the urine, 7.e., a condition 
of glycosuria is produced. Such an increase in blood sugar can 
arise from emotional disturbance. Glycosuria, therefore, is one 
of the effects of the emotions. The evidence for this is: 

(a) It is possible that some cases of diabetes are due to 
great emotional excitement. 

(b) States of depression are sometimes accompanied by 
glycosuria. 

(ec) The injection of adrenalin can cause glycosuria. 

(d) Animals under the influence of pain and fear excrete 
sugar in the urine. 

(e) Experiments with human subjects show that glycosuria 
may be present after a hard examination. Twelve out of twenty- 
five foot-ball players had sugar in the urine after an exciting 
game. ‘‘The only excited spectator of the Harvard victory, 
whose urine was examined, also had a marked glycosuria which 
on the following day had disappeared.’’® 

(f) Cannon undertakes to prove that the increase of sugar 
in the blood and its subsequent appearance in the urine is due 
to the functioning of the adrenal glands, and in so doing he shows 
also that the functioning of the adrenal glands, and the visceral 
changes that depend upon them, are not at all necessary for ap- 
parent emotions in animals. 

(1) It is evident that the secretion of sugar is due to the 
adrenal glands, because the artificial stimulation of the 
splanchnic nerves produces glycosuria. The splanchnic 
nerves contribute the fibres of the adrenal plexus, that is to 
say, the nerve fibres that govern the activity of these glands. 
It is thus likely that in an emotion the splanchnic nerves 
earry stimuli to the adrenal glands inciting them to activity. 


* Cannon, op. cit., pp. 75, 76. 


128 


HUMAN EMOTIONAL. LIFE 


This results in the secretion of adrenalin and thus finally in 
the appearance of more sugar in the blood. 

(11) If one removes the adrenal glands, the emotions no 
longer produce a glycosuria. ‘‘Although the animals de- 
prived of their adrenals manifested a general lessening of 
muscular tone, they still display much of their former rage 
or excitement when bound. Indeed, one was much more 
excited after the removal of the adrenals than before.’” 
One could not, however, by any degree of excitement pro- 
duce in them a glycosuria. It thus appears not only that 
the adrenal glands are necessary for the secretion of sugar 
in the emotions, but also that these glands and the visceral 
changes which they produce are not necessary for the pro- 
duction of the emotions. 

(11) Improved muscular contraction. One of the effects 
of the emotions is, as we have seen, the secretion of adrenalin. 
Adrenalin has long been supposed to have an effect on the 
general muscular tonus. This supposition has been based 
upon symptoms which characterize Addison’s disease, a 
pathological condition due to destruction of the adrenal 
glands, usually by tubercular process. In this disease one 
of the characteristic symptoms is general weakness—the loss 
of the tonus in the muscles and rapid fatigability. It would 
seem that the loss of the secretion of adrenalin due to de- 
struction of the glands results in a decrease of muscular 
efficiency. Experiments made on rats show that when they 
are deprived of their adrenals, they are more quickly ex- 
hausted in a revolving cage than normal animals. Experi- 
ments with the frog indicate that the injection of adrenalin 
had an invigorating effect on muscular contraction. Cannon 
has demonstrated the fact that in the living warm-blooded 
animal stimulation of the splanchnic nerves improves mus- 
cular contraction. The reader will remember that we pointed 
out above that the splanchnic nerves supply the fibres which 
oo to constitute the adrenal plexus and that their stimulation 
produces an increased secretion of adrenalin. Cannon, there- 


*Cannon, op. cit., p. 78. 


THE EXPRESSION OF THE EMOTIONS 129 


fore, isolated the tibialis anticus and its anterior tibial nerve 
and the splanchnic nerves. By proper protective devices 
against drying, ete., it was possible to stimulate continu- 
ously the tebialis anticus and during this stimulation to give 
the splanchnic nerves a series of rapid uninterrupted shocks 
from an induction coil. This produced a short rise in the 
height of the muscular contraction which might be attributed 
to the concomitant rise in blood pressure. This was followed 
by a prolonged rise which seemed to be due to the secretion 
of adrenalin into the renal veins. For if the renal veins 
were clipped and the splanchnic nerve stimulated, the rise of 
blood pressure and the concomitant brief increase in mus- 
cular contraction occur as before, but it is not followed by the 
prolonged rise which takes place when the renal vein is 
not obstructed. 

(1v) Restoration of fatigued muscle. Cannon and his 
students have found that within five minutes after an injec- 
tion of 1.01=1.05 cubic centimetres of adrenalin (1-100,000) 
the fatigue threshold of a muscle is considerably decreased. 
That this reduction of fatigue is due to adrenalin and not 
to an improvement of circulation in the muscle by raising 
the blood pressure is evidenced by the fact that the improve- 
ment in muscular contraction takes place when the adrenalin 
is administered in such a dilute solution that it produces a 
fall instead of a rise of the blood pressure. 

(v) Hastening the coagulation of the blood. Injecting 
adrenalin into the circulation reduces the time required 
for the coagulation of the blood. It is interesting to note, 
however, that adrenalin does not produce this effect on the 
blood when it circulates only in the anterior half of the ani- 
mal. Thus, if ligatures are tied around the aorta and the 
inferior vena cava immediately above the diaphragm, the 
coagulation time is not shortened. Furthermore, in an ani- 
mal from which the gastrointestinal canal and liver have 
been removed coagulation time is not shortened. Mere fail- 
ure, therefore, of the blood to circulate through the intestinal 
organs makes it impossible for adrenalin to shorten coagula- 


130 


HUMAN EMOTIONAL LIFE 


tion time. If the activity of the liver is ruled out by liga- 
ture of its vessels or by phosphorus poisoning, the coagula- 
tion time of the blood is lengthened. Cannon, therefore, sup- 
poses that the liver continually contributes to the blood one 
of the factors in the coagulating process. This factor can 
be stimulated by adrenalin. Moreover, stimulation of the 
splanchnies shortens coagulation time, but only if the adre- 
nal glands are intact. Coagulation time is hastened as the 
result of painful stimulation and emotional excitement. We 
thus see that one of the effects of the emotions is the de- 
crease in the time it takes for the blood to coagulate. 

The work of Cannon and his pupils which has here been 
briefly analyzed is the most important contribution that has 
yet been made to our understanding of the bodily resonance. 
Cannon himself has pointed out the utility of the bodily 
changes which are produced by emotional excitement through 
the activity of adrenalin. The fundamental effect of the emo- 
tions is, first of all, the secretion of adrenalin. The adrenalin 
then produces effects which would be of use to an animal in 
the conflicts which often follow upon emotional excitement. 
The increase of blood sugar is nothing more nor less than 
the mobilization of fuel whose metabolism sets free the 
energy of muscular contraction. In the struggle which is 
likely to follow upon emotional excitement, the energy of 
the organism will necessarily be called upon. The emotion, 
therefore, by a definite mechanism sets free the energy that 
will be required for the struggle. Furthermore, not only is 
the fuel increased, but the mechanism of the machinery seems 
to be improved. Muscular contraction is increased and its 
fatigability is decreased, and the process by which the mech- 
anism is restored to normal after fatigue is accelerated. If 
in the struggle which ensues the animal is wounded, the very 
anger which this wound produces sets into activity a 
mechanism by which the blood is more quickly coagulated 
and its loss so far as possible prevented. 

We may now ask whether or not the visceral changes 
pointed out by Cannon could constitute a group of specific 


THE EXPRESSION OF THE EMOTIONS 131 


phenomena the perception of which would give to an emotion 
its peculiar characteristic quality. It would seem that this 
is not the case. The changes pointed out by Cannon are not 
specific but common to all emotional states. The perception 
of these changes, therefore, would give us only emotional 
excitement, not specific emotion. 

We may ask also whether or not these changes occur soon 
enough to constitute by their perception or awareness in 
consciousness the emotion itself. Here again it seems that 
they are phenomena which must occur too late to constitute 
the emotion. The sudden presence of danger arouses at 
once an emotion of fear, but a perceptible time escapes be- 
tween the perception of danger and the visceral changes to 
which Cannon has ealled our attention. The splanchnic 
nerves must be stimulated. This is the first stage of the 
process. This stimulation must pass to the adrenal plexus, 
the gland must be set into activity, the products of this ae- 
tivity must find their way into the renal veins, and the blood 
containing this adrenalin must then pass to the vena cava and 
thence to the heart to be redistributed to the organs of the 
body and affect them in characteristic ways. In order to 
accomplish all this, something more is needed than a small 
fraction of a second in which an emotion of fear arises at 
the sudden presence of danger. It seems rational to look 
upon the perception of the danger as causing the emotion 
and the emotion as bringing about the stimulation of the 
splanchnic nerves, which is responsible for the further se- 
quence of events in the emotional display. Once the series 
of processes has been set up, the emotional resonance is no 
doubt perceived, and its perception constitutes an important 
element in the complex series of events of which the emotion 
is constructed. 


CHAPTER III 


SUMMARY OF THE THEORY OF THE AFFECTIVE 
MENTAL STATES 


WE MAY now summarize the main points at which we have 
arrived in discussing the affective mental states: 3 

I. The affective mental states must be distinguished clearly 
from our representative processes, for they have characteristics 
of their own which cannot be confounded with our sensations, 
mental images, and concepts. 

II. In the affective mental states themselves we may distin- 
guish two groups: The first group consists of simple feelings, 
such as pleasure and pain. The number of these simple feelings 
is as yet an unsettled problem. It seems likely that they are much 
more numerous than has as yet been supposed. The other group 
consists of more complex states which are usually termed emo- 
tions. Each emotion consists of one or more simple feelings along 
with concepts, sensations, and a more or less complex bodily 
resonance which is partially specific and partially common to all 
emotional states. An emotion, therefore, is a complex group 
of phenomena. 

III. Simple feelings may be divided into two classes: (a) 
Those that arise in response to mere sensations, (b) those that 
arise in response to meanings and intellectual insights. The latter 
class are affective elements that give to an emotional complex 
its specific character. 

IV. The affective mental states cannot be looked upon merely 
as attributes of sensation. They are independent forms of our 
mental life. 

V. The affective mental states are not sensations. } 

VI. Every human emotional complex has an important ele- 
ment—intellectual insight into the situation that is involved. 
This insight into the situation is the cause of the emotion. 

132 


THEORY OF THE AFFECTIVE MENTAL STATES 133 


VII. The emotion produces a number of complex phenomena 
which we may term its bodily resonance. The Lange-James 
theory which regards the emotional resonance as the cause of 
the emotion reverses the real order of sequence in the causal 
process which relates the emotion to its expression. Since, how- 
ever, an emotion is a complex process consisting of a whole series 
of events in temporal sequence, the perception of the bodily 
resonance must necessarily be an element in the emotional com- 
plex. This bodily resonance is unquestionably perceived, and 
because it is perceived constitutes one event in a series of 
phenomena which makes up the emotional display. 

VIII. The emotional resonance is not merely a means of 
perceiving the emotion, but it involves mechanisms that are 
highly teleological in character. The results of the emotion are 
useful to the animal organism. In the present stage of human 
development some of these mechanisms have outlived their utility. 


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PART IV 


THE DRIVING FORCES OF HUMAN NATURE 
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CHAPTER I 
INSTINCT AND IMPULSE 


PsycHOLocicaL analysis has so far failed to give any satisfac- 
tory reduction of our instinctive life to an orderly group of 
elementary units. One reason for this may be the fact that the 
starting point in the study of instincts has usually been the 
terminology of popular speech. It has been assumed apparently 
that such terms as the instinct of self-preservation, the parental 
instinct, the play instinct, the fighting instinct, etc., are definite 
psychological units. But is this the case? To assume that it 
is, without further analysis, is certainly not a scientific procedure. 

On the other hand, progress in the study of instincts has 
perhaps been delayed by the assumption that instincts are to be 
reduced to reflex action, so that there are no such things really 
as instincts in the mental life of animals, but only a more or less 
complicated series of reflex actions. 

‘‘Tnstinct,’’ says Herbert Spencer, ‘‘may be defined as com- 
pound reflex action.’’? Since his day the instincts of animals 
and men have been often characterized as chains of reflex actions. 
There has been, however, no extensive attempt to analyze these 
chains of reflexes and pick out their neural path—nor even to 
point out the series of stimuli which bring about the series of 
responses. If we look closely at the instinctive reactions of ani- 
mals, we see that the series of events is usually comparatively 
short, and that the links of the chain of events are not all of the 
same character. The term ‘‘compound reflex action,’’ concate- 
nated reflex, chain of reflexes, is, therefore, likely to be mislead- 
ing, in that it suggests the idea of a more or less lengthy series of 
events, all the items of which are identical in nature and bear 
the essential characteristic of a stimulus producing a definite 
response promptly and with mechanical necessity. 

Is this the case? Let us look at the details of a few instinc- 
- tive reactions. 

1 Principles of Psychology, Vol. I, ch. V, p. 194. 
10 137 


1388 THE DRIVING FORCES OF HUMAN NATURE 


Watson made a very interesting study of the behavior of 
the noddy and sooty tern, that seems on superficial analysis to 
bear out the concept of the concatenated reflex. He noticed how 
the parent bird would go off in a quest for minnows. He would 
then return with his crop full and sit on the edge of the nest. 
The young birds would then peck at his beak. In response to the 
stimulus of pecking, the food in the parent’s crop would be re- 
gurgitated into its mouth and then deposited in the beak of 
the young. 

The feeding of the young by the parent here described is a 
typical instinctive action. It consists essentially of two ele- 
ments: (a) The regurgitation of the food and (b) the depositing 
of this food in the mouth of the young. It is possible that the 
first element is a typical reflex. We may suppose that, without 
the stimulus of pecking on the beak, the old bird would be unable 
to regurgitate the food. We assume, in other words, that it is 
not a movement over which the bird has an internal control, as it 
does over the flapping of its wings. We may suppose a neural 
mechanism connecting the beak with the musculature of the crop. 
When the receptor area has been adequately stimulated the mus- 
culature of the crop contracts, due to this stimulation, and the 
food is mechanically regurgitated into the mouth. All this is 
assumption, and perhaps the most probable assumption. If, 
however, someone were to prove that the noddy tern had as 
complete control over the musculature of its crop as of its wings, 
one might doubt the existence of a reflex action. For the reaction 
might possibly be due to the tapping appealing to the parental 
feeling of the old bird, who then regurgitates it by something 
more akin to a voluntary act similar to the flapping of its wings. 
If this were the case, then we would not speak here of a reflex 
action but of something different. It would resemble what we 
term impulsive actions in ourselves. 

The next element in this instinctive action is the depositing 
of the food in the mouth of the young. This is different from a 
reflex action, because it involves a motor codrdination that must 
be varied each and every time it is executed. Any sufficiently 
intense contraction of the crop will bring the food on all occasions 


INSTINCT AND IMPULSE 139 


into the mouth of the parent. From one occasion to another 
contractions of the crop vary only in intensity; but depositing 
the food into the mouth of the particular fledgling that happens 
to receive it, involves a different muscular coordination every 
time it is done. The mere fact of the presence of the food in the 
mouth causing certain sensations, then, is not an adequate stimu- 
lus, as pecking may be the adequate stimulus for the regurgita- 
tion. It is not sufficient for the parent bird merely to get the 
food out of its mouth anywhere and anyhow. It must deposit 
it into the mouth of its young. This requires coordination and 
eritical control dependent on incoming visual sensations. It is 
something more than the fixed and stable stimulus and response 
reaction of the pure reflex. Granted that the first element of the 
feeding process is a reflex, the second bears characteristies that 
do not belong to the typical reflex action. In this instinctive re- 
action there is, therefore, one element at least which cannot be 
considered a reflex. We may term it an impulsive action; and 
the tendency to perform it an impulse. 

Let us take another example. I once had the opportunity of 
watching a parent pickerel guarding her brood of young. For 
some days she encircled incessantly the little school of minnows 
that were rather closely huddled together. Whenever one would 
go back to the spot, there was the big fish slowly moving around 
the little ones. Is it really possible to explain this behavior as a 
reflex action? We would have to suppose some kind of stimuli, 
perhaps chemical, emanating from the little fish that jerked the 
big fish’s tail just enough, and in just the right way, to keep it 
constantly in its orbit ; and another set of stimuli emanating from 
the big fish that coordinated the movements of the little fish, so 
that they always stayed together in the centre of the orbit. 

It seems that we cannot have in this piece of behavior the 
fixed and invariable stimulus and response reaction of a reflex, 
but the sensori-motor codrdination of quite a different psychologi- 
eal unit, to which we give the name of impulse. 

Concept of Impulse.—Analysis, therefore, of some animal in- 
stincts reveals a reaction less stable than the reflex, subject to 
modification and improvement which resembles similar types of 


140 THE DRIVING FORCES OF HUMAN NATURE 


reaction in ourselves which we term impulses. We may, there- 
fore, regard this type of reaction as one element in the instine- 
tive complex. 

In our own consciousness we can distinguish the tendency that 
we perceive to execute some movement, from the movement itself. 
The term impulse applies more properly to this consciousness of 
a tendency to action. The action itself is not the tendency nor 
the awareness of this tendency, but its result. It may be desig- 
nated as an wmpulsive action. 

Though the term ‘‘impulse’’ has been applied mainly to motor 
activity, it may have a broader application. For we experience 
not only tendencies to movement but also other tendencies which, 
while connected with movements, are mainly directed to sen- 
sations. Thus, we have tendencies to make use of our senses as 
occasion may arise, to look, to listen, to smell, to taste, to touch. 
Whereas the tendency to strike or to run, which we experience 
in fear, aims at an action as an end; the movements of the head 
in listening aim at an action only as a means. For the tendency 
is not merely to move the head, but to listen for some sound that 
will be perceived. We have also tendencies to think, to seek 
knowledge, and to solve problems, tendencies to enjoy pleasant 
situations and to avoid unpleasant ones. All of these tendencies 
may be considered as impulses. 

It is to be noted that truly impulsive tendencies are not ex- 
perienced except in the presence of an opportunity to exercise 
ahuman ability. At least we are justified in restricting the term 
‘“impulse’’ to the consciousness of a drive to exercise an ability 
when the opportunity presents itself. 

If there is no opportunity to exercise an ability, what we 
experience is not an impulse, but a craving. These cravings we 
shall consider in the chapter on desires. 

We may, therefore, define an impulse as a tendency that we 
experience, in the presence of an actual opportunity, to make use 
of any one of our human abilities. 

Impulses are the real psychological elements in instincts. 
Much of the discussion about the number and nature of instincts 
is rendered superfluous by this concept. There are just as many 


INSTINCT AND IMPULSE 141 


impulses as there are human abilities. Instincts are merely 
groups of impulses or desires to which popular parlance has given 
names. In danger the ‘‘instinct of self-preservation’’ is called 
into play. This means nothing more than that every human 
ability that can help to extricate one from the danger is called 
into action. The parental instinct makes parents employ all 
their abilities in protecting their children, caring for them and 
furthering their welfare, ete. 

Valuable as would be the study of those groups of impulses 
in detail to which popular psychology has given names, we must 
refer this study to social psychology to which it more properly 
belongs. 

Difference between Impulse and Reflex Action.—Having 
eriticized the concept of instinct as a chain of reflexes, and pointed 
out the fact that there are in some instincts two kinds of links in 
the chain—one the reflex and the other the impulse—it will be 
useful to contrast impulse and reflex action so as to differentiate 
them more clearly. 

1. In a reflex action the movement follows promptly and with 
mechanical necessity upon the presentation of the stimulus. Jm- 
mediate necessity characterizes the relationship between stimulus 
and response in reflex action. In an impulse, however, the move- 
ment may or may not follow upon the presentation of the stimulus. 
In the human adult the impulsive act takes place as a rule with 
voluntary consent and often with voluntary guidance and direc- 
tion. One of the important tasks of education is the develop- 
ment of the control of impulse. This task is possible because the 
will has direct control over the execution of the impulse. It 
has no such control over the movement of the simple reflex. This 
control is more extensive than the narrowly restricted vol- 
untary sphere of influence in the cortical reflex. Thus, one 
may, for a time, keep back a cough or a sneeze, but eventually 
the explosive movement overcomes all resistance. The longer 
the delay the more involuntary and forced does the final 
movement seem. But one may, under insult, keep back indefi- 
nitely the impulse to strike, and if it is finally yielded to, it may 
be more voluntary and less reflex in character than it would have 


142 THE DRIVING FORCES OF HUMAN NATURE 


been had the individual acted on the spur of the moment. Jm- 
mediate necessity does not characterize the relationship between 
stimulus and response in wmpulsive action. 

u. Impulsive actions are elements of behavior in which the 
organism as an individual is involved. In reflex action, on the 
contrary, only a piece of mechanism possessed by an organism 
is set in action. 

m1. Reflex actions are always responses to simple stimuli; im- 
pulsive actions, on the contrary, often involve complheated situa- 
tions. Thus, one may hear a remark from one individual and 
feel no motor impulse at all. But another person hearing the 
same thing has to hold back a sudden impulse to strike. Not 
the sound of the voices, nor the meaning of the words alone, 
but the whole situation of individual Ae eaii! ealls forth 
the impulse to strike. 

tv. No impulsive action takes place without consciousness. 
Many reflexes—all indeed except the cortical reflexes—may be 
obtained in the unconscious subject. 

v. Volition has no part in the production of a reflex movement. 
Tt may at most permit it as in the cortical reflex. In the impulse, 
however, it guides and directs the movement of response. 

The Classification of Impulses.—If we define an impulse as 
a tendency to make use of some of our human abilities, the prob- 
lem of their classification is relatively easy. They may be classi- 
fied according to our classification of human abilities. Every 
ability has its peculiar neurological mechanism. This mechan- 
ism involves not only a static structure which may be made use 
of as a passive instrument; but also a dynamic force which tends 
spontaneously to action. It is thus that the mind differs from 
a mere machine. When, now, we come to classify our impulses 
it seems reasonable to adopt a scheme of division based upon 
whatever principles of classification of human abilities we have 
adopted, rather than to divide them according to purposes that 
the impulsive acts may serve. 

To consider all the impulsive tendencies of human nature in 
detail would make the present volume extend beyond reasonable 
limits. We shall, therefore, do little more than illustrate the 


INSTINCT AND IMPULSE 143 


impulses by a review of the motor and sensory forms. There are 
also affective and intellectual forms. The affective impulses will 
find several illustrations in a study of mental readjustments, ¢.g., 
the parataxes of depression and anxiety.’ 

Motor Impulses.—The original type of the impulse is the 
tendency to respond to a present situation by some kind of a 
movement. We should, however, include under the term ‘‘motor 
impulse,’’ not only special codrdinations such as striking, kicking, 
pushing, hugging, clasping, jumping, etc., but also uncoordinated 
random movements. One will seek in vain to find special stimuli 
for the random movements of the arms and legs of the young 
infant. They may sometimes be pain responses, but not always. 
They can best be interpreted as proceeding from the inherent 
mechanism of motor ability which, like all other living structures, 
needs no other reason for action than its own existence. Random 
movements, in other words, are not reflex actions, and do not need 
to be initiated by sensory stimuli. Living muscles and a normal 
nervous system, and intact connections between the two, are all 
that are necessary. 

The question now arises: Do random movements and random 
movements alone constitute the original inheritance of the indi- 
vidual’s motor equipment; and if so, are coordinate movements 
learned by selection from random movements? ‘This is certainly 
not the case. The young of many animals can perform various 
motor codrdinations from their very first entrance into the out- 
side world. This is particularly true of the insects among whom 
these codrdinations are often apparently perfect from the outset. 
Higher up in the animal scale, inherited motor codrdinations are 
at first imperfect. The young chick pecks from the outset, but 
experience makes his pecking sure to hit the mark. The young 
foal capers about soon after birth, but how awkwardly compared 
to the graceful running of the horse! The young fledgling makes 
the appropriate movements of flying when first tempted from 
the nest, but it soon flutters to the ground. The young infant 
when first clasped to the mother’s bosom grasps the breast and 
commences to suck. When, for the first time, an infant is in appar- 
Na GEE ah PRLSO TENN LOREM ERY CARS LANG, CASO MH RC TGR 


144 THE DRIVING FORCES OF HUMAN NATURE 


ent danger of falling from the lurching of a wagon, it may clutch 
the person holding it by an adequately coordinated movement 
which could not have been learned by experience.* We must, 
therefore, conclude that the mechanism of many coordinate move- 
ments is an established element of neurological heredity. Dis- 
turbances of equilibrium, for example, act upon the semicircular 
canals and these transmit the stimulus to Deiters nucleus, to the 
cerebellum, and also to the cortex by way, perhaps, of the optic 
thalamus. Through these connections a mechanism for throwing 
out the arms and grasping whatever may be in reach is set in 
action. In the young infant this mechanism may be a pure re- 
flex, and even in the adult it approaches the character of a 
reflex. It seems, however, to be a motor tendency which, unlike 
the simple reflex, is not executed in unconscious subjects; and 
unlike the cortical reflexes involves sensori-motor codrdinations, 
1.€., adjustments to present situations. The whole process is rather 
complicated. It seems to exist prior to experience. It is an 
hereditary neuromuscular mechanism which comes into play 
when equilibration reflexes are inadequate to meet the situation. 
There are many such mechanisms present in the human nervous 
system. Situations of one kind or another set them in action. 
They may be inhibited by the adult whose ideals of conduct, etc., 
exercise a control over the actions of the body musculature. Or 
they may be the first step in a series of actions continued and 
directed by conscious voluntary control. 

One need not be surprised at the existence of complete neural 
mechanisms for the execution of fairly complicated motor 
coordinations. Experiment gives us actual examples. Electrical 
stimulation of the cortex leads usually to a single movement 
which, however, is not due to the contractions of only one muscle, 
but to the codrdinate action of a group of muscles, e.g., flexion 
and extension of arm, hand, ete. In the rabbit one may cause 
not only such isolated movements, but also a whole series of 
chewing movements, by the stimulation of the proper area of the 
cortex. If such a neural mechanism may be set in action by elec- 


Cf. Kathleen Carter Moore, “The Mental Development of a Child,” 
Mon. Supple. Psychol. Review, No. 3, 1896. Cf. also infra, p. 343 ff. 


INSTINCT AND IMPULSE 145 


trical stimulation it need not surprise us that the actual situ- 
ations of life call forth tendencies to even more complicated 
motor responses. 

Motor Impulses and Play.—The original tendency to make 
use of these inherited motor mechanisms is the first element in 
the development of play. To crawl, creep, walk, run, are actions 
whose original stimulus lies in the motor mechanism itself, even 
though this mechanism may also be set in action by interests 
that are awakened by sensory stimulation. If, in the course of 
moving about, one individual meets another, to shove, to push, 
to pull, to tussle, to grasp, to fondle, etc., are all acts for which 
there are original motor tendencies with their appropriate neural 
mechanisms. With animals, play consists mainly in the exercise 
of these original motor tendencies. 

MeDougall points out that it is rather peculiar that the dog 
in play bites but does not hurt, and the kitten paws but does not 
scratch, and yet there is plenty of muscular power at their dis- 
posal to inflict injury. He brings out this peculiarity of play to 
show that it is not, as Groos’ theory would lead us to suppose, 
a mere premature ripening of the instinct of fighting. He sug- 
gests that it is due to the impulse of rivalry. 

‘‘The impulse of rivalry is to get the better of an opponent 
in some sort of struggle; but it differs from the combative im- 
pulse in that it does not prompt to, and does not find satisfac- 
tion in, the destruction of the opponent. Rather, the continued 
existence of the rival, as such, but as a conquered rival, seems 
necessary for its full satisfaction ; and a benevolent condescension 
toward the conquered rival is not incompatible with the activity 
of the impulse, as it is with that of the combative impulse.’’* 

This seems a rather complicated mental mechanism even for 
the human child, to say nothing of the dog. It might be simpler 
to suppose that the impulse to an adequate use of the weapons 
of defense is called out only by a situation from which anger or 
fear arises. In other situations biting is more akin to tasting, 
_ pawing to feeling. If anger is not present, the cat may strike 
with its paws, but it cannot scratch because the muscles which 

* Social Psychology, 1908, p. 118. AWA OLE RRP EUR eke UA 


146 THE DRIVING FORCES OF HUMAN NATURE 


set the claws in position are not in action. The playful animal 
is often angered, and, when his ire is aroused, he promptly makes 
adequate use of his offensive and defensive mechanisms. 

The exercise of motor impulses may exhaust the concept of 
play in animal behavior. But this is not true of the child. For ° 
the use of original tendencies is always undergoing a process 
of modification by influences which arise from the activity of other 
mental functions. Thus, the child reads and hears about the 
doings of Indians and savages. It is natural to the human mind 
to desire to live through interesting scenes that are only heard 
of or read about, in reality if possible, but if not, in imagination. 
The child, therefore, will at times run away from home to seek 
the Indian in the far West; but more commonly he is content to 
play Indian at home. Thus, play becomes modified by imagina- 
tion. In all probability children’s play. implies nothing more 
than the use of motor tendencies under the influence of an attempt 
to live through in imagination things heard about, read of, or 
seen, whether in reality or in theatres. The tendency to do all 
this is an impulse by which we compensate by dreaming for 
realities that can never be ours. To maintain that the develop- 
ment of the child is the unfolding of the history of the race, and 
that the play of children gives us an epitome of human history 
from primitive man to civilized institutions, is an hypothesis 
for which there is but little evidence. It is at best an analogy 
based upon the fact that the embryo goes through stages of de- 
velopment in which it possesses at various periods organs that 
are characteristic of lower animals. Thus, the first secretory 
apparatus of the human embryo, the pronephros, resembles in 
some manner the nephritic tubules of the earthworm. These are 
replaced by the mesonephros similar in structure to the kidney 
of the frog. Finally there appears the metanephros, the final 
form of the human kidney. Other organs go through similar 
stages of development. From such facts we cannot argue that | 
the mind must recapitulate—not merely the mental history of 
' the animal kingdom, but also go through all the stages of develop- 
ment through which the human race has passed from primitive 
man to the present day. Nor do the facts of child psychology 





INSTINCT AND IMPULSE 147 


render the recapitulation theory of human instincts anything 
more than a naive speculation. 

Sensory Impulses.—Every sense organ carries with it a ten- 
dency to action by means of which objects perceived by the sense 
organ are observed under more favorable conditions. The end 
of this action is not the movement but the exercise of sensory ob- 
servation. Movement is the means, sensory observation is the 
end. Thorndike has grouped together the sensory impulses under 
the one name, original attentiveness: 

‘‘Of the situations to which man is sensitive some originally 
excite the further responses—of disposing him, especially his 
sense organs and central nervous system, to be more emphati- 
cally impressed thereby—which we call responses of attention 
‘to the situations in question. Thus, he moves his head and eyes 
so that the light rays from a bright-colored object moving across 
the visual field are kept upon or near the spot of clear vision. 
The features which are so selected for special influence upon man 
may vary with sex and age, but are substantially covered by the 
rule that. man is originally attentive (1) to sudden change and 
sharp contrasts, and (2) to all the sttuations to which he has 
further tendencies to respond, as by flight, pursuit, repulsion, 
play, and the like.’’”® 

The sensory impulses are characteristic of animals as well as 
man. ‘To be convinced of this, one need but watch a dog sitting 
in a window taking apparently keen interest in everything that 
passes, whining and becoming greatly excited if another dog 
comes into view, ete. It is peculiar that this impulse gives so 
much satisfaction also to human beings. As soon as the infant 
can sit up it becomes at once a keen observer. When it can crawl 
it wants to feel what it sees, and, if possible, put it in its mouth. 
The ambition of many an adult seems never to get beyond this 
infantile interest in watching. Thus, idlers hang around rail- 
road stations, lean against lamp-posts, and, mirabile dictu, seem 
to while away many a pleasant hour in this fruitless occupation; 
and how many an old person ends his days in peaceful bliss, 
sitting at a window and watching the passers-by. 

* Educational Psychol., Vol. I, The Original Nature of Man, 1913, p. 46. 


148. THE DRIVING FORCES OF HUMAN NATURE 


In some of these cases the original attentiveness to mere 
sensations 1s associated with sexual or other interests, so that the 
behavior of the idler may be more complex than one would at 
first suppose. 

Neural Mechanism of Sensory Impulses.—The neural 
mechanism for this impulse consists in the sensory end organ, the 
sensory nerve and its connection with cerebral ganglia, and the 
paths which lead from these ganglia to the various motor mechan- 
isms of the central nervous system. Every one of the sensory 
nerves has a complicated system of connections through reflex 
centres with various motor tracts. Every one of them also has 
an ultimate centre in the cortex. If Bechterew’s results are trust- 
worthy,® the cortical sensory centres are also regions, the stimu- 
lation of which leads to such movements as are connected with 
the functioning of the sense organ, e.g., eye movements, focusing 
of the lens, ete. Besides such direct connections with the museu- 
lar apparatus of the sense organ, each sensory centre has mani- 
fold connections with other areas of the cortex. In fact, when 
one views the complicated histological network of the cerebrum 
with its cortical tangential fibres and the association fibres of the 
white matter, one must admit the possibility of at least a potential 
connection between any one spot in the brain and any other by 
one or more neurons. 

Spontaneity of Sensory Impulses,—The existence of these 
subcortical and cortical connections would suggest that the sense 
organ may be focused upon an object of perception, not only by 
the reflex action of incoming stimuli, but also by conditions 
originating in the cortex itself. As a matter of fact, tendencies 
to make use of a sense organ are not confined to those which are 
produced by incoming stimuli. A situation as well as a stimulus 
may cause one to look, listen, ete. Interests that can be satisfied 
only by search, memories of past pleasures, various needs and 
necessities of life, are far more frequently the source of the use 
of our senses than the stimuli which impinge upon the organs 
of sense. The old man sitting at the window not only looks at 
what he sees, but is also looking for something to see. One may 
RE OR suprayipi 64s FAL RL aha) NE ear 


INSTINCT AND IMPULSE 149 


ramble in the woods and not only listen to the singing of the 
birds, but also listen to catch the sound of their song. Sensation 
is not only a passive something, but also involves active impulses 
to sense. Other impulses subordinate this active power in their 
own service. Thus, in danger of attack, one does not wait until 
he hears in order to listen, but listens long before he hears. Such 
subordination, however, is not necessary. Sensory impulses, as 
such, exist in man which do not imply the functioning of any 
other instinctive type of behavior. The mere possession of an 
organ of sense creates a tendency to its exercise, that is, a sen- 
sory impulse strictly so-called. 


CHAPTER II 
DESIRE 


Concept of Desire.—If one experiences a lively impulse in a 
given situation and inhibits its execution so that the situation 
passes away, the whole affair is not likely to end with the closing — 
of the little incident. Memory images are periodic—they come 
and go. The memory images of emotionally toned situations 
are especially subject to periodic recurrence. It seems probable 
also that affectively toned situations, in which impulses were vol- 
untarily blocked or accidentally thwarted, have a particularly 
strong tendency to recur, so that the individual may enjoy in— 
imagination what he misses in reality. Sexually toned situations 
have this tendency to a marked degree. 

If the imaginary going over of the situation with its pictured 
execution of the impulse is inhibited constantly and effectively, 
the tendency is present in human nature to dream about the 
situation at night, either clearly and openly, or in a symbolic 
fashion which completely obscures the real meaning of the dream, 
or to take pleasure in doing things that, consciously or uncon- 
sciously, have some kind of association with the frus- 
trated impulse. 

It is not the impulse which is active in all these transforma- 
tions of the original situation, but something to which a frus- 
trated impulse gives rise. This resultant of an impulse that is 
not or cannot be carried out is ‘‘desire.’’ The impulse is a ten- 
dency to act in a given situation by the exercise of some of our 
human abilities. A desire is a craving that we experience to seek 
or produce a situation in which impulsive tendencies may be satis- 
fied. Desire is the torrent of waters, impulsive satisfactions the 
channels of outlet. It is this torrent of waters that moves the 
machinery of human activity. It will find its outlet somewhere 
—if not in the courses that flow along the surface, then in the 
deeper subterranean levels of the mind, Where the outlet of | 

150 


DESIRE 151 


desire is going to be is not entirely a problem of mechanics. For 
there is a power of voluntary direction that opens the locks in 
one place and closes them in another. The constant resultant 
. of suddenly closing the locks that bar the channel of impulsive 
action is the rising of the waters of desire. The psychological 
cause of desire is the temporary or permanent blocking of impul- 
sive channels. It is clear that some outlet must be provided for 
the forces of our impulsive activity. All the channels cannot be 
kept closed all the time. 

Besides the forms of desire easily recognized as belonging to 
the native abilities or faculties of the mind, there are also activi- 
ties that a human being experiences in his life as an individual 
and in relation to society, for which definite physiological and 
psychological mechanisms exist. 

The activities connected with eating, drinking, and the pro- 
pagation of the species, though not usually considered as mental, 
have nevertheless definite physiological mechanisms, and when 
the opportunity to exercise them is not offered, lead to cravings 
that constitute a group of the strongest driving forces of 
human nature. 

Besides these there are a number of psychological mechanisms 
that cannot at first sight be definitely grouped with any single 
faculty, but affect the harmonious operation of all our abilities 
in relation to our fellowmen. Thus, all men have a natural 
‘craving for the approval of their fellowmen, and make use of 
all their abilities to attain it. All men have a desire to dominate 
their surroundings, and make use of all their abilities to do so. 
And,strange to say, there seems to be an opposite craving of vastly 
different intensity in various individuals that is often spoken 
of as the impulse of subjection. It is probably, however, not a 
definite psychological entity, but is, in part, the mere inertia of 
the mind that we term laziness, and, in part, one of the many 
maskings of the sex drive. 

All of these cravings, whether physiological or psychological, 
constitute a fairly well-defined group of natural wants, of which 
we are conscious only when unsatisfied and the opportunity of 
satisfaction is not given. The craving ceases and passes into en- 


152 THE DRIVING FORCES OF HUMAN NATURE 


joyment during the process of satisfaction. All cravings must 
be rooted ultimately in mental capacities, even those that are 
physical. For the psychological craving is not, for example, 
to supply the chemical needs of the organism for water, but for 
the satisfaction that is experienced in drinking. 

The craving for the approval of our fellowmen, and to domi- 
nate one’s surroundings, is rooted in the intellect, in the enhance- 
ment of the idea that every man has of himself. Everyone has a 
tendency to conceive of himself in the highest possible terms and 
whatever convinces him of his own excellence and importance 
awakens a satisfaction which once experienced is ever afterwards 
eraved and so constitutes a powerful driving force of human 
nature. But at bottom the self-idea is but one form of intellectual 
activity, for the idea of self is not red nor blue, a 32-foot tone nor 
a one-foot tone, it is not a taste, a touch nor a smell. It is an 
intellectual appreciation which leads to exaltation when we judge 
of ourselves favorably, and depression when we cannot help 
but look upon ourselves in an unfavorable light. 

With due reference to the various forms in which desire mani- 
fests itself, we may define it as follows: 

A desire 1s a craving that we experience to seek or produce 
— @ situation in which impulsive tendencies may be satisfied, or 
natural wants may be supplied. 

The Classification of Desires.—The natural classification of 
desires must follow the classification of human abilities. Just as 
we have as many impulses as there are abilities to be exercised, 
and each ability has associated with it a physiological and psy- 
chological mechanism tending to set it in action in the presence 
of an opportunity, so also every ability has similar mechanisms 
that produce cravings psychologically recognized as desires when 
adequate stimuli are not present. These cravings drive the organ- 
ism, or the individual, to action so that the ability may be exer- 
eised and the craving satisfied. All cravings, furthermore, must 
be capable of satisfying some human activity. Therefore, the 
natural classification of desires runs parallel with that of the 
abilities themselves. 


DESIRE 153 


We may, however, consider desires from various points of 
view and formulate many artificial classifications, each useful 
for special purposes. 

Thus, a classification of desires has been suggested into those 
that have to do with the conservation of the individual and those 
that concern the conservation and propagation of the race; con- 
servatio sui et speciet. Again, desires are classified into those that 
concern food, clothing, and shelter. 

A rather important artificial classification from the point 
of view of psychology is the division of desires into conscious and 
unconscious. Desires meet with the individual’s approval or 
disapproval. Those that he approves of, he admits, satisfies, owns 
up to; those he disapproves of, he tries to repress, forget, and 
disown. The resultant is a real psychological difference in desires. 
(a) A group of surface desires often rather shallow and impotent, 
and (b) a group of suppressed desires very potent in character, 
causing disturbances in the mental life of the individual of whose 
origin and nature he remains ignorant. 

Another classification is into sensory and intellectual desires, 
namely, those that have to do with the lower pleasures of sense 
and those that have to do with the higher delights of intellectual 
pursuits. There are several distinctive characteristics that dif- 
ferentiate these two forms of desire. 

Sensory desires are inborn or native. Intellectual desires 
are acquired. 

Sensory desires are involuntary. They arise no matter what 
we do. Intellectual desires are subject to voluntary control. 

Sensory desires are modified by satisfaction or the gradual 
wearing down of time. Intellectual desires may be modified by a 
system of training. 

Sensory desires come and go according to the condition of 
the organism. They are usually independent of each other, 
more or less isolated, and not codrdinated into a system. Intellec- 
_ tual desires on the contrary, though not always conscious, abide 
continually with us and are readily built up into a system that 


constitutes the individual’s plan of life. 
11 


154 THE DRIVING FORCES OF HUMAN NATURE 


The plan of life: Human desires have a natural tendency 
to group themselves into some kind of plan. Until we under- 
stand this plan an individual whom we may study remains more 
or less of a mystery. The grouping of desires into a plan of life 
is, therefore, a real psychological mechanism and to omit its 
study would be a serious defect in human psychology. 

The gazing into the future, which comes sporadically to all 
normal human beings, leads naturally to the question, what am 
I to do with the years that are before me? I am inclined to think 
that in spite of the question forcing itself on the mind again and 
again, many individuals, probably the majority, give it no definite 
answer and make no attempt to plan out consciously a rational 
disposition of the future. Vocational guidance is rare, but is 
now becoming more common. Adequate parental help is fre- 
quently lacking. Opportunities present themselves and are 
grasped without a thought of their present adequacy or their 
future power to satisfy. All sorts of ‘‘accidents’’ happen, paren- 
tal neglect, the harshness of teachers, the indifference of the out- 
side world, love affairs, books suggesting opportunities are read 
by chance, friends are met, etc. Emotional and intellectual re- 
actions to these situations determine resolutions and points of 
view that direct the mind to a dimly or perhaps more or less 
clearly outlined goal of endeavor. Should a conscious goal never 
appear on the horizon, some desires will eventually dominate 
and unconsciously everything in the individual’s mind will con- 
verge towards their satisfaction. 

Individuals without an adequate goal in life are very likely 
to be doomed to years that please them not when youth com- 
mences to fade. I recall to mind a German past the prime of life 
who came to the clinic for help. He had accomplished nothing in 
life and had nothing to which he could look forward. He had 
arteriosclerosis and various accompanying symptoms of a rather 
premature onset of old age. My attempts to get him to adjust 
himself to his present situation did not satisfy him at all. He 
wished to be rejuvenated, as it were, by miracle. One day he 
broke out in tears and commenced to ery, ‘‘Meine Jugend! Meine 
Jugend! Meine velorene Jugend!’’ ‘‘My youth! My youth! My 


DESIRE 155 


lost youth.’’ Had Mephistopheles answered as he did Doctor 
Faust he would have found a ready subject in this old German. 

The lack of a plan of life leading to the wasting of life’s most 
precious years is one of the most serious defects that can occur 
in anyone’s psychological machinery. 

Some err by excess in planning their life and give themselves 
up to idle dreams, in which character defects become dominant. 

One of my patients from the time she was nine years old used 
to spend much idle time in dreaming of her future life. She built 
in imagination her future home, papered and furnished the rooms, 
and long before she had any idea of the meaning of marriage, 
peopled it with her family, idealized her husband, imagined her- 
self cooking, which art she has never yet learned or exercised 
except in day-dreams. Her craving for sympathy created various 
scenes in which she fainted, created a commotion in the place 
where she might be, was surrounded by spectators that pitied her 
and nursed her. She often rehearsed her death scene surrounded 
by sobbing friends, ete. 

Such a planning of life determines nothing in reality, runs 
into sexuality and forces separation from the world in an unreal 
imaginary life. This was pointed out to her and some time later 
I asked her to recast for me her plan of life and I received the 
following perfectly spontaneous formulation which may also 
be regarded as an example of a native tendency to sublimate.! 

(a) Residence in community, religious, which would be small 
enough to aid in a certain amount of mutual understanding but 
not necessarily friendship. (b) Passage of a great part of the 
time outside school hours in meditation and prayer. (c) Free- 
dom, on my own part, from any trace of feeling of incapability. 
(d) Growth in my own soul of zeal for gaining other souls for 
Christ and a consequent killing of all selfishness. (e) True and 
deep friendship with Christ which would totally supplant all 
human affections. (f) Great spirit of mortification. (g¢) Worth 
as a teacher. (h) Love and understanding for, and power, both 
-mental and spiritual, over pupils. (i) Ability to make every- 
thing serve as a stepping-stone to my aim in life. 


1For the meaning of sublimation, cf. infra, p. 241 ff. 


156 THE DRIVING FORCES OF HUMAN NATURE 


Another girl who came to the clinic complaining of depression 
and hopelessness in life had at the time the following outlook on 
life involving the shimmering of an unconsciously formulated 
but clearly inadequate plan: 

Both her father and mother drank and she had never ex- 
perienced from either the affection that she craved. She could 
never remember that her mother kissed her except formally when 
she would leave on a trip. She could not bring any friends to 
her home because she sometimes found her parents drunk on 
returning to the house. 

With this condition of home affairs, she saw nothing but 
suffering ahead, but had made up her mind to endure it. The 
idea of leading a life of sin came to her repeatedly. She thought 
of marriage, but put it out of her head. If she married she felt 
that she could not accept any but a superior man. She felt her- 
self inferior and incapable of attracting or holding the affection 
of a superior man. She felt, therefore, that she would eventually 
drift into being someone’s mistress; felt that if this was to come 
about she would have to leave home, and often contemplated 
doing so and in some way contriving to let her people think she 
was dead. 

In such a ease religion is the only hope. The patient having 
had a religious education, a positive attempt was made in this 
ease to obtain a religious sublimation.” This attempt led to the 
following plan of life: Love God first and his people afterward. 
Work for Christ by going some place where she could nurse or 
eare for little children. 

One must not think that in order to have a successful plan 
of life it must be highly idealistic. Such plans are often too 
unreal to be successful and so lead to failure and disappointment. 
The simple pleasures of ordinary family life keep the vast major- 
ity of the world in a peaceful adjustment to the world and its 
troubles. Some have no further aim than this. One patient 
expressed herself to me thus: I want to be nothing more than 
the ordinary woman who takes care of the house, visits and 
occasionally drives with her friends. One girl settled down to 
CUTICLE infra, po Qalidt., cia Ae welvpris Sew). > Spee ee 


DESIRE 157 


a fair state of contentment by starting out to take care of her 
brother and the chickens. 

True nobility after all is not to be found in deeds of extraor- 
dinary heroism, but in the ordinary affairs of everyday life. 
Little things and ordinary oecupations are truly worthwhile. This 
fact brings happiness within the grasp of any man, for anyone 
ean formulate a plan of life leading to the accomplishment of 
something of value and so attain happiness. 

When in a clinic we attempt to get others to formulate a plan 
of life it is well to remember that what could satisfy ourselves 
is not necessary or suited to them. I have often been surprised to 
see how little it takes to awaken new interest, give true satisfac- 
_ tion, redirect and guide a human being who had been hopelessly 
at sea like a bark that had been cut loose from its moorings. 

The Management of Desires——Dynamic psychology treats 
not only of the theoretical nature of the driving forees of human 
nature, but also attempts to give practical directions for the 
rational manipulation of these forces in ourselves and others. It 
should, therefore, attempt to deal specifically with the problem of 
the management of desires and on the basis of a psychological 
analysis give principles that will be of real value in the control of 
human conduct. 

The following principles are the results of a psychological 
analysis of desires and are offered as practical guides to conduct: 

1. Human life is so complicated and our abilities are so mant- 
fold and opportunities are so numerous that rt 1s a physical im- 
possibility for anyone to realize all his desires. Simple as this 
principle may seem; its neglect is often the cause of considerable 
discontent. It may be neglected in two ways. 

a. By forgetting the multiplicity of the objects of possible 
satisfaction. If a person is disappointed in one thing, or one 
person, it sometimes happens that he closes his eyes to every- 
thing else, or to everybody else. He keeps driving ahead at the 
impossible much as the Paramecium does when it gets into a 
- blind-alley. This microscopic organism backs up in its blind- 
alley and drives ahead again and bumps its ‘‘nose,’’ and does 
this repeatedly until, perhaps by chance, it backs up too far, and 


158 THE DRIVING FORCES OF HUMAN NATURE 


turns off at a slightly different angle and so escapes from its 
predicament. Many human beings act precisely in the same 
way wasting precious years in a blind drive after the impossible. 

b. Sometimes, on the other hand, the very multiplicity of the 
opportunities that life holds out causes a conflict. People forget 
they do not have to enjoy everything, that in fact it is impossible 
for them to make use of all their opportunities. Forgetting all 
this they give way to idle regrets because they must give up some 
of the many things that are open to them. 

2. All desires are not equally worthwhile satisfying and the 
criterion of worth wn evaluating them is not pleasure but accom- 
plishment. There are some desires which when satisfied give 
pleasure indeed in the satisfaction, but when the satisfaction is 
over there is nothing to show for its enjoyment. This is true of 
all sensory desires, except perhaps muscular exercises which re- 
sults in the strengthening of the body. The intellectual desires 
associated with education when enjoyed leave traces in the mind, 
which are the foundation of habits of permanent value. These 
habits are not only means of future enjoyment but also of a 
livelihood. Those desires should reasonably be considered of 
greater worth that not only give pleasure but also provide the 
means of future accomplishment. 

3. It as, therefore, necessary for us to establish a hierarchy 
of desires in which there shall be one supreme end of life to which 
everything else must conform. The establishment of this hier- 
archy of desires is what we have termed a formulation of a plan 
of life. From the natural point of view perfection in one’s ealling 
or profession in life should be the supreme end towards which 
everything else should converge. One should pick out some walk 
in life in which occupation will not only give him a livelihood 
but also pleasure and happiness. The normal thing is that one 
should enjoy his life. If you cannot enjoy your profession you 
should not choose it. 

4. It 1s clear that in the hierarchy of our desires the lower 
and sensual should be subordinated to the higher and intellectual; 
for though the craving for the sensual may be stronger, the satis- 
faction that comes from the intellectual is vastly more extensive, 
more lasting, more productive of good to the individual and 


DESIRE 159 


society and fraught with no evil consequences. Only by such a 
subordination as this will great success in any career become 
possible. Pleasure should never be an end in itself but merely 
the oil that makes the machinery of life move more smoothly. 

Dd. With a clear conception of means and end in our life we 
must order our labors wn accordance with opportunity. It is 
sometimes impossible for us to have what we desire because the 
opportunity is lacking. We should not, therefore, sit down and 
do nothing until the opportunity presents itself. Careful inspec- 
tion of our surroundings will always reveal opportunities that 
are worthwhile. The plan of life, therefore, should be sufficiently 
elastic to yield to the necessity imposed by the presence or the 
_ absence of opportunity. 

6. It ws reasonable to exercise self-denial: 
a. In order that our end may be attained. 
b. In order that our efficiency may not be impaired. 

Much is said in psychological literature about the evils of 
repression. Some repression, however, is necessary. Existence 
in modern life is impossible without the inhibition of many forms 
of inopportune conduct, to say nothing of behavior that is not 
lawful. Inhibition is also necessary if a plan of life is to be 
carried out successfully to its final conclusion. This means re- 
trenching the pleasures of the present for the enjoyment of the 
success of the future. Unless one is schooled in inhibition and 
repression this is not possible. We must, furthermore, as we have 
said, exercise self-denial in order that our efficiency may not be 
impaired. Barring the accidents of special misfortunes, the main 
impairment of human efficiency is arteriosclerosis, the hardening 
of the arteries. According to Osler there are four causes of arte- 
riosclerosis: Venus, Bacchus, Tobacco, and hard work, either men- 
tal or physical. Wisdom dictates self-denial in all of these things 
in order that efficiency may not be impared. If, however, self- 
denial is exercised chiefly where it is most often lacking, that is 
in regard to Venus, Bacchus and Tobacco, the amount of hard 
work would probably take care of itself, or perhaps would be 
limited automatically by fatigue long before it resulted in any 
impairment of efficiency. 


CHAPTER III 
THE CONFLICT 


THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CONFLICT 


WE HAVE just passed in review the main driving forces of 
human nature. These driving forces are the impulses and desires. 
The impulses, and incidentally the desires, are tendencies to exer- 
cise the mental and physical abilities with which we are endowed. 
From the dawn of life to the twilight of senescence these forces 
are in constant action, but not always directed toward one un- 
varying end and not always working together in the same 
associations and groupings. 

The Conflict in Infancy—At first the sensory impulses to 
see, to hear, to touch, to smell, to taste are in themselves sufficient 
to delight and interest the child. Before he can crawl they keep 
his eyes and ears in ceaseless activity during the waking hours 
of the day. Soon they become motive forces that send the baby 
crawling on his first tour of investigation. The motor and sensory 
impulses are the only kinetic mechanisms in the infant mind and 
they exist in it in their pristine purity. Thus, the infant wants 
to hear, see, touch, taste, smell from pure sensory curiosity—to 
see for the sake of seeing, to hear for the sake of hearing, and 
not for ulterior ends or for purposes which may in some manner 
be associated with the act of sensing. Older people often wonder 
at the ceaseless activity of the child. It is an activity which is 
produced by the drive of sensory impulses—a drive which is 
limited only by the physical impossibility of attainment, and 
which is as yet unhampered by the inhibitions of the moral ideal 
or altruistic considerations of any kind whatsoever. 

The whole energy of the infant is directed towards the satis- 
faction of sensory curiosity. If his enjoyment of the pleasures of 
sense is thwarted or cut short he reacts by erying. The usual 
result of the infant’s cry is that someone listens. The mother 
or the nurse finds out what is wanted and, if possible, supplies 
it. Very soon the infant learns that he gets what he wants by 

160 


THE CONFLICT 161 


erying and commences all unconsciously to strive to dominate 
the world by appealing to the sympathy of others. He appeals 
first to their sympathy to supply his unsatisfied desire. Who 
would not take pity on a crying infant and give it what it wants 
if he only could? If this desire cannot be satisfied the mother 
pets and rocks and kisses and hugs to her breast the crying infant ; 
thus, sympathizing with him in his sorrow and teaching him his 
first lesson in compensation, the compensation of sympathy which 
makes good the want that cannot be filled. The compensation 
often more than makes up for the broken toy or whatever the 
trivial mishap that may cause the infant’s sorrow. The com- 
pensation is a delight in itself and becomes in itself an object 
of desire. In every httle sorrow it is readily sought and as 
- readily granted. 

But there comes a time when no one is near to heed the cry 
or when those who are near do not heed and the child is left to 
mourn its little sorrow without any comfort or coddling. It has 
experienced for the first time the full bitterness of a conflict that 
it must henceforth wage as long as it lives. The puny strength 
of its desires is in battle with the inexorable laws of nature or the 
scarcely less uncompromising wills of uninterested men. The 
child then puts forth all its energy in the type of reaction that 
has hitherto met with success. It cries and screams louder and 
then louder again, it kicks and squirms violently till, wearied with 
its exertions, it ceases and falls asleep, having lost its first battle 
in the conflict with reality. 

It is good, it is wholesome, it is necessary that many such 
battles should be lost. We cannot all of us have all that we 
want all the time. No child is born to be lord and master of the 
universe and never suffer denials, sorrows, and disappointments. 
But absolute and supreme dominion is the unconscious aim of 
every infant until the dawn of reason. In some individuals 
this ideal seems to last, in spite of the sad lessons of experience, 
till death puts an end to their conflict. 

The uncompromising selfishness of the adult is repugnant to 
us because we feel that it could and should have been corrected 
long ago. The unconscious cruelty of the infant is excused be- 


162 THE DRIVING FORCES OF HUMAN NATURE 


cause it is unconscious, and we think that it will be corrected 
later. But many a family fails to realize the fact that the selfish- 
ness of the child passes into that of the man unless the child suf- 
fers numerous defeats in its warfare for the dominion of the 
universe. Gradually and insidiously the infant conquers not the 
world indeed, but the household. Its whims must be granted, for 
its erying must be stilled. No tyrant ever exercised a more piti- 
less and uncompromising sway than that of the infant who has 
triumphed over the family. 

The Conflict in Childhood.—Not many years elapse before 
the child ceases to be a mere sensory-motor organism. When 
merely an infant one could teach it its lesson: ‘‘Things are not 
to be obtained by erying,’’ only by letting it ery in vain, with- 
out the compensation of petting and coddling for the things it 
should not have. Little by little it learns to understand what 
others say to it and to reply with its childish prattling. Now 
it can learn by simple explanations and examples. What it does 
not perceive it can be told. It learns that its mother is tired, 
that she cannot carry it, that she feels badly when it misbehaves, 
ete. There has been introduced into its behavior a new factor, 
one that did not function at all when it was a pure sensory- 
motor organism. Simple ideals of conduct commence to limit 
and restrain the driving force of the instincts as well as the sheer 
impossibility of their satisfaction. 

From now on there is a double conflict—one without, with 
nature and its inexorable laws, and man and his unbending will; 
the other within, with its own ideals of conduct. Sensory ecuri- 
osity drives on as it did in infaney, but now there is a check, a 
restraining influence. This check is not from without but from 
within—from the child’s own mind, from its ideals of conduct. 
In most children these ideals when implanted arise from the love 
they bear to their mother. ‘‘Don’t do that.’’ ‘‘Why?’’ ‘‘Be- 
eause I don’t want you to,’’ is with some children a sufficient 
reason—a reason which derives its cogency from the love that 
a child bears its mother. With others it must be reinforced by 
a whipping. But there are children in whom the real motive is 
traceable back to the persuasion of a mother who has promised 


THE CONFLICT 163 


not to whip and who they know will keep her word. Those who 
think that the fear of the whip is the only factor in moral develop- 
ment have too simple a concept of the child mind. Those on 
the other hand, who think the fear of the whip is a factor which 
should be excluded from the moral discipline of youth, have too 
profound a trust in the essential goodness of human nature. It 
is a factor which should be given its place with all due judg- 
ment and discretion in the array of forces which attempt to re- 
strain and direct the blind rush of the sensory impulses to be 
satisfied at all costs and without regard to the peace and pleasure 
of others. 

The sources of the development of moral ideas in children are 
far more numerous than some might suppose. We have as yet 
very little exact empirical information on the matter, and are left 
very largely to judgments based upon our own more or less unan- 
alyzed experience. Judging by the appeal we so often hear 
mothers make to their children (that the child hurts the mother 
in its rough play, ‘‘mother wants you to do this,’’ ‘‘don’t do 
this because mother does not want it,’’ ete.), one of the earliest 
and most well drilled of juvenile moral principles must be: ‘‘It 
is wrong to do what your parents do not like.’’? When the child 
grows a little older this principle is reinforced by the religious 
one, ‘‘It is wrong to do what God forbids,’’ and children are told 
that God forbids them to disobey their parents. Both principles 
have their sanctions: The rod and the fear of eternal punishment. 
But the fear of punishment is not the sole spring of action in the 
child’s mind. He is neither so base as to do what he is told purely 
from the fear of the rod; nor so noble that the love of his parents 
and respect for divine law is always sufficient to keep him from 
doing wrong. 

Children differ in the relative degree in which they are in- 
fluenced by law and its sanctions. There are some who may be 
described as morally dull. As a rule, this moral dulness is asso- 
ciated with a pronounced degree of intellectual defect. Rare 
cases will be found in which the usual tests for intelligence will 
give normal values in children who nevertheless seem unrespon- 
sive to ordinary moral instruction. In these cases I suspect a 


164 THE DRIVING FORCES OF HUMAN NATURE 


defect of emotional resonance which deprives them of the assist- 
ance that others have from sympathetic feelings. Some children 
on the other hand are so responsive to the nobler springs of 
action that they experience, at a very early age, conflicts, the 
bitterness of which is usually tasted only by those who have 
passed the age of puberty. 

Children who live in good homes and have their own little 
treasure of trifles very soon acquire the concept of the right of 
ownership, a concept which is very necessary for them to act 
up to in the present state of human society. Healy in his little 
work on honesty attributes some few cases of stealing in children 
to the lack of formation of this idea in their minds, brought about 
by the fact that the children of the family owned their toys in 
common. Whatever parents may think of the ideal state of human 
society it might be well for them to bring their children up to 
meet conditions as they are. 

Kline! found that a deeply rooted principle of juvenile ethics 
is the law that a gift cannot be taken back. I think that the ex- 
perience of most will corroborate his findings. This principle of 
juvenile ethics may have its roots in a wish-fulfilment, for the 
child receives much more often than it gives. 

He also found that children from eight to eighteen are more 
likely to be altruistic than selfish. The principles of altruism are 
very early instilled into their minds in most good homes and this 
philosophy appeals to their sympathetic natures. In fact, sym- 
‘pathy for the unhappiness of others clouds their moral judgment. 
Kline found emotionalism rather than reason was often the domi- 
nating factor in their moral judgments. 

A. consideration of such facts as these will show us that with 
the advent of the power of understanding the spoken word and 
of assimilating the knowledge that may be communicated by 
language, the kinetic mechanism of behavior in the child becomes 
very different from what it was in infancy. In infancy behavior 








*“ A Study in Juvenile Ethics,” The Pedagogical Seminary, 1903, X, 
pp. 229-266. For an extensive study of the development of the moral prin- 
ciples of children, see Marie C. McGrath, Catholic University of America 
Studies in Psychology, Psychological Monographs, Vol. 32, No. 144, p. 190. 


THE CONFLICT 165 


was directed by the unpleasant consequences of satisfaction sought 
in certain channels, and by the sheer impossibility of attainment. 
In childhood (and by this period I mean that which elapses from 
the acquisition of spoken language up to puberty), the limitation 
of conduct is not only brought about by unpleasantness and im- 
possibility but also by a more or less complex, but still relatively 
simple, system of ideals of conduct. 

This makes a conflict of an altogether different nature from 
that which exists in infancy. The infant wants its own way and 
eries when it cannot have it. But it soon learns that some things 
are out of the question and after crying for the impossible resigns 
itself to its fate. Or, if it catches a bee and is stung, it does not 
grasp for the next big bug that flies and buzzes about it. The 
child, on the other hand, besides knowing that it cannot, and fear- 
ing lest it should, feels that it ought not. A neglect of the sense 
of obligation in the psychology of childhood makes it impossible 
for us to duly appreciate its conflict. This is true, no matter 
what one may think of the validity of the sense of obligation 
that the child experiences. Valid or imvalid it is a positive 
psychological factor in the child’s life. 

It is necessary to distinguish the inhibitory power of moral 
eoncepts from the impulses themselves. All impulses are native 
tendencies to make use of native abilities. All moral concepts 
are acquired and hence cannot be impulses. Because native, and 
therefore a part of man’s inherited constitution, impulses can- 
not be eradicated. Moral concepts unfortunately are often 
supplanted by a philosophy which is more in harmony with the 
instinctive cravings of nature. Moral concepts instead, therefore, 
of being impulses are acquisitions of experience designed to 
render possible the control of impulsive action. 

Moral concepts do not themselves control actions but simply 
inhibit impulses from flowing over into actions without the guid- 
ance and direction of reason. The tendency of impulsive action 
is to assume the spontaneity and promptness of a reflex. This 
_ would often be injurious to the individual in his relation to other 
members of society or to his own full rounded and perfect develop- 
ment. The moral idea inhibits an act which would otherwise 


166 THE DRIVING FORCES OF HUMAN NATURE 


take place spontaneously and makes it possible for the individual 
to refrain from acting or to act with deliberation and conscious 
choice. This implies another kinetic power which prolongs the 
deliberation by maintaining the moral principle before the mind 
and finally acts, it may be, against the driving force of the im- 
pulses. The maintaining of the moral principles before the mind 
requires a distinct effort. This effort is certainly not that of 
impulsive activity—for impulsive activity is driving to action 
irrespective of moral ideals. It is not the mere tendency of ideas 
to recur by association. This tendency may have called up the 
moral concepts in the first place. When ideas come up in this 
fashion they do so apparently spontaneously and of their own 
accord. But in the moral conflict, principles are sometimes main- 
tained before the mind with a distinct effort. This effort 1s one 
of the forms of voluntary action. 

When the individual acts contrary to the drive of the impulses 
this often requires a tremendous expenditure of effort. This 
- effort certainly is not the effort of the impulses. It is something 
which is in conflict with them and is now triumphing over them. 
It is certainly not a purely intellectual something. It cannot, 
therefore, be the moral concepts. Here again we recognize volun- 
tary effort in one of its many manifestations. 

The characteristic, then, which distinguishes the conflict of 
the child from that of the infant is the appearance of an internal 
conflict. The infant has no conflict with himself. He is unable 
to question his own impulses. He follows where they lead, stop- 
ping only when one impulse inhibits another, as for instance, 
when fear restrains curiosity. The child has also an internal 
conflict. He does question his own impulses. Moral concepts 
have been instilled into his mind that have given him ideals 
of conduct and a sense of obligation that he must conform to 
them. His impulses often drive him to courses of action that 
conflict with his ideals of conduct and hence arises a conflict 
which was unknown in infancy. 

The rise of the moral conflict does not mean that the conflict 
with reality ceases. Far from it. The child still drives on in its 
attempt to dominate, just as the infant did. When, for example, 


THE CONFLICT 167 


the time comes to go to school it frequently resents giving up 
forever those happy days in which it had nothing to do but follow 
without restraint the impulses of sensory curiosity in its play. 
At this time we are likely to meet with the first elements of the 
psychosis. As soon as the child learns that ailments form an 
honorable excuse for the non-performance of unpleasant duties, 
_ it strives against doing what it does not want to do by magnifying 
its petty ills. It imagines, too, some complaint it does not have, 
and so, safeguarding its conscience tries to escape from what it 
finds distasteful. I shall cite several instances of this in discussing 
the parataxes of defense. In such conflicts with reality rather 
than in purely internal mental warfare the child has its bit- 
terest battles. 

| When we compare the conflicts of childhood that are waged 
on moral grounds between impulse and will with those that take 
place after puberty they seem to be very trivial affairs. From 
the child’s point of view they have callea forth enormous effort, 
but in reality there was no great expenditure of voluntary energy. 
For the child’s will is weak just as his muscles are puny and his 
memory feeble and all his abilities far inferior to those of an 
adult. We have as yet no means of measuring strength of will 
in adult or child. We have measured some of the child’s abilities, 
such as memory. Whereas the popular notion is that the child’s 
memory is much better than the adult’s, experiment shows it is 
much weaker. All experiments made so far lead us to believe 
that children’s mental abilities as well as their muscular strength 
are inferior to those of the adult. It is likely, therefore, that 
voluntary control in the child, just as all other abilities in 
children, is weaker than it is in the adult. Some direct evidence 
that a child’s will is weak may be found in the fact that when 
sexual development takes place prematurely it is very likely 
to be indulged without restraint. The voluntary control of a 
child of eleven or twelve is wholly unequal to the difficulties and 
temptations of a mature man or woman. 

As to the nature of the moral conflicts of children, they 
usually concern such things as lying, stealing, fighting, dis- 
obedience, using bad language. Sexual difficulties, in the strict 


168 THE DRIVING FORCES OF HUMAN NATURE 


sense, do not exist in childhood, except in a few exceptional cases 
of mistreatment. Few children make a bitter fight to maintain 
their moral ideals against the insidiousness of these temptations. 
At most they make a few sporadic efforts at the instigation of 
others who happen to take a special interest in their moral welfare. 

The Conflict after Puberty—The advent of puberty does 
not do away with the desire to keep the senses active and the 
body moving—any more than did the acquisition of speech. 
The keen delight that the young find in games is in part essentially 
the same pleasure that they found in infancy in kicking and 
squirming, and rolling and crawling. The exercise of any func- 
tion or ability is in itself pleasurable and under circumstances, 
keenly so. The enjoyment of a trip to the country by a city boy 
is due to a large extent, to the pleasure that is experienced in the 
healthy satisfaction of the curiosity of the senses. And (on the 
contrary) the lure of the town to the country boy or girl is at 
first based upon the curiosity of the senses—to hear and see 
things they have read about but never taken in with their own 
ears and eyes. \ 

The interest in moving pictures is in part identical with that 
of the infant just old enough to sit up, who keeps his wide eyes 
in constant motion looking here and there and uttering, at times, 
its eooings of delight. 

With the development of mental faculties comes a deeper 
appreciation of the difference between the world of fiction and 
the world of reality. The child is impatient to become a man 
and quit reading about things and see them for himself. Here 
again we often have at first nothing but pure sensory curiosity, 
the desire to actually experience the things that have been read 
about or seen, as yet, only in the moving pictures. This desire 
is at the root of much truancy and running away from home. 

Though, later on, sensory curiosity becomes associated with 
complex instinctive activities, one will be mistaken if he presumes 
that some of the early escapades of children are sexually moti- 
vated in the strict sense of the word. By the strict sense is here 
understood the craving for the specific pleasure that arises from 
all forms of rapprochement between the sexes. This pleasure is 


THE CONFLICT 169 


distinetly the acquisition of puberty and does not exist long 
before its onset. 

The following escapade looks at first sight as if it had its 
roots in sexuality. | ; 

A young girl had become at thirteen a ‘‘movie addict.’’ She 
stayed out late at night to see the motion pictures and no per- 
suasion nor punishment could break her of the habit. She had a 
good home so that the root of her difficulty did not le, as it so 
often does, in the lack of a suitable place to spend the evenings. 
She went to see a series of films, the main motif in which was the 
adventures of a girl running away from home. She became 
possessed with a desire to imitate this girl, and experience for 
_ herself some of the adventures of life. Her first attempt was to 
evo to the house of another little girl under the pretence that she 
had permission to pay her a visit. 

When her deceit was discovered she was sent home. She next 
met with a young man and one morning they went off together. 
During the day he proposed marriage. Lying about her age, 
they obtained a license and were married in a neighboring town. 
The next morning she was found by a detective, whom her mother 
had sent after her; she and the young man were arrested. 

Mental examination showed a girl of borderline intelligence 
approaching closely the moron level. At the time of her marriage 
she knew nothing whatsoever about child-birth and had no con- 
ception of marital functions. She was very much shocked and 
frightened by her experience and welcomed her arrest as an 
escape from a painful situation that had not been anticipated. 

One cannot be sure, in a case studied as superficially as this, 
that there was not present an unconscious sexual drive. It is 
always possible to imagine the presence of unconscious factors 
that further analysis would reveal. Nor will any depth of analy- 
sis be sufficient to satisfy one who is inclined to postulate their 
presence. Students of human nature are inclined just now to 
magnify the extent of unconscious influences as much as a little 
while ago, psychiatrists tended to minimize them or neglect 
them altogether. 

12 


170 THE DRIVING FORCES OF HUMAN NATURE 


One need postulate no more in this case than the drive of 
sensory curiosity to experience adventures that had been seen 
in pictures. The escapade with the young man meant little more 
in this child’s imagination when she started out with him on the 
morning of their marriage, than the incident that had just been 
ended at the house of her girl friend. 

Association of Sensory Curiosity with Other Interests.— 
When the age of puberty, arrives sensory curiosity does not 
long exert an isolated influence. Prior to this period sexual 
matters may have awakened a peculiarly lively curiosity—but 
mainly because they were shrouded in so much mystery and 
encased in all manner of prohibitions. With puberty, a distinctly 
new coloring manifests its first blush, and sensory curiosity 
becomes more or less rapidly complicated by sexual curiosity. 
Motor activity and the mere exercise of the senses for their own 
sake become relatively tame and tiresome. Tops, marbles, jump- 
ing ropes, roller skates lose much of their former zest. Talks, 
walks, dances have an attraction never before experienced. A 
new interest is manifested in personal appearance. Novels are 
much more highly appreciated. 

At the same time, other instincts arise and old ones change 
their form. The herd instinct of the child is more likely to find 
its outlet in marauding gangs that are recruited from boys who 
have not yet attained the full development of puberty. Sheldon’s 
study” of predatory gangs of boys showed a maximum at eleven 
years of age. Their diminution after that age is due to absorption 
by athletic societies. Gangs that persist and are made up of 
young men that have passed puberty bear an altogether different 
character from those of children. They are maintained by con- 
tact with professional criminals and what used to be play has 
become a profession. The herd instinct after puberty manifests 
itself normally only when ulterior purposes hold together socie- 
ties and organizations. Athletics, literature, art, music, politics 
become the bonds of interest. 

Some few gangs are held together by a kind of loose organi- 
zation for the purpose of frequenting dance halls. In those, the 

27Am. J. Psychol., 1898, IX, 425-448, Fide Hall, Adolescence. 


THE CONFLICT 171 


factor complicating the herd instinct is sexual. But, as a rule, 
the herd instinct of childhood becomes modified in puberty not 
by sexual, but by other types of interest. These interests usually 
have to do with some form of intellectual pursuit after athletics 
has held its temporary sway. 

The tendency to heap up and acquire greater and greater 
possessions is a fairly well-defined human craving. In children 
it manifests itself in a passion for collecting. As measured 
by the number of things collected it reaches its maximum at ten. 
In adolescence it remains as a mere vestige of its former self. 
The probable reason for this is that increase in years gives a 
deeper insight into the problems of life and the craving is directed 
_ to practical channels. For, whereas the tendency to collect arti- 
cles of no practical value decreases with puberty, the tendency to 
save money increases.* 

This association of interests must of necessity intensify the 
appeal which life makes to the mind of the child. He becomes 
much more difficult to manage. A whipping may be an effectual 
and permanent set-back to mere sensory curiosity. But in the 
more complex drives after puberty it may be wholly without effect. 
Habitual truants, for example, when the motive is homosexuality 
or mere fellowship in the gang, may be whipped most unmerci- 
fully without its effecting the least change in their conduct. 

Opposing Forces in the Conflict—So far we have been 
speaking of the sensory drive and its complication by instinctive 
activities that mature at puberty. This is one side of the con- 
flict. Its intensity usually hes concealed completely from our 
view. Occasionally when a boy or girl has been checked in his 
or her unsocial career and taken to a college or an institution, 
the violence of the reaction, the hysterical tantrums, the negativ- 
istic spells with refusal of food, the days of pouting and sullen- 
ness reveal to us the intensity with which he has desired to have 
his own way. % 

*“ The Collecting Instinct,” Caroline F. Burke, Ped. Sem., 1900, VIT, 


pp. 179-207, Fide Hall, Adolescence, p. 484. “ Money Sense of Children,” 
Will. S. Monroe, Ped. Sem., 1890, VI, p. 152, Fide Hall, Adolescence, p. 393. 


172 THE DRIVING FORCES OF HUMAN NATURE 


To want to have one’s own way is not a pathological sign. It 
belongs to us by inherent right. At the same time, it is necessary 
that our inherent egoism be brought under control. Existence 
in the social order in multifarious relations to other human beings 
makes this necessary. From the social order arises the first oppo- 
sition to the egoism of the individual and a conflict which is the 
psychogenic source of every psychoneurosis. 

The first element of the social order with which the indi- 
vidual’s egoism comes in contact is the family. It is the function 
of the family to prescribe limits to personal selfishness. It very 
often fails in this task because of the selfishness and unreasonable- 
ness of the members that compose it. It is very seldom that a 
father has an insight into the mind of a child and its difficulties. 
It is all too often that he is cruel in his unreasonableness. I re- 
member a child of eight who was brought to the clinic for truancy. 
His back was all striped with broad, livid lashes left by a recent 
beating his father had given him with a razor strop. When asked 
what was the matter with his back he tried to cover up the real 
cause by saying that he had been leaning up against some chestnut 
burrs. Many a mother knows besides the lash only one other means 
of dealing with the delinquency of a child, and that is her 
angry tongue. 

By the time of adolescence, school companions by fighting 
and making fun have usually contributed their full share to the 
training of the child. Many a boy and girl has paid up bitterly 
on entering school for the freedom from restraint enjoyed in the 
lap of a short-sighted and indulgent mother. High school and 
college continue to do battle with selfishness and arrogance and 
Overweening pride. 

And then there is the court with the police and its institutions 
of confinement. Only in recent times has a glimmer of psychologi- 
eal insight penetrated into the custodians of the law. 

With these forces, the selfishness of youth comes into conflict 
in the perseveration of its infantile drive to dominate without 
regard to the rights of others or its own best interests. This 
conflict is made all the more bitter and unfruitful because, as 
a rule, restraint by whipping or scolding or imprisonment 


THE CONFLICT 173 


exhausts the methods of authority. The mind of man is 
like flowing water. If one outlet is dammed up, another 
must be opened or there will be an overflow somewhere. You 
cannot restrain human activity by damming. You must provide 
an outlet. If you are not satisfied with what a young person is 
doing you must look out for something else for him to do. The 
adolescent must not be made to contend merely with parental 
temper and pious advice. Whether in the family or in the institu- 
tion every outlet possible must be given for his energies. Athletics 
must be systematically encouraged. An attempt must be made 
to find out what interests he has along normal vocational lines, 
and a psychological study made of his abilities, that these inter- 
ests may be rationally guided. Besides this we can, by instruc- 
_ tion, awaken interests that are not present, by visits to factories 
and business establishments, and by directing a systematic investi- 
gation of the careers that are feasible. 

Reasonable direction and not conflict should characterize the 
relation between the adolescent and society. 

Besides these external forces, determining an outer conflict 
with society, there develops little by little an inner conflict with 
the problems of the mind, a conflict which centres in human 
egoism and the self-ideal. 

Concept of the Self-ideal—By the self-ideal is understood 
here a concept that has two elements. It is one’s own private, 
personal opinion of himself, (a) of his present abilities, and (b) 
what he hopes to attain. It varies enormously with the intelli- 
gence of the individual. It has no existence in the idiot, little 
or none in the imbecile, but is definitely present in the moron, 
who often overestimates himself and what he ean do. 

In those schooled in the doctrine of a humble estimation of 
oneself, a large part of the self-ideal gets into the subconscious. 
It is wrong to be proud, is the central doctrine of humility. 
Humility, however, is perfectly compatible with a just estimate 
of what one can and what one cannot do. But many make the 
mistake of never allowing themselves to think of their own 
abilities and crowd out of mind everything that resembles self- 
complacency. The result of this is that they store up a great deal 


174 THE DRIVING FORCES OF HUMAN NATURE 


of subconscious pride. Their professions of inability are simply 
defense reactions against the discovery of their pride. They 
are easily angered though if anyone makes a slighting remark 
about their ability. This is a ‘‘complex indicator.’’ One who 
is humbly conscious of his disability may be grieved, but he is 
not angered if others make remarks about it. The deaf man 
gets angry if others tell him he cannot hear, because he does not 
want to realize how deaf he is. 

So extensive is the system of defense reactions against the 
realization of our own defects that it would take quite a great deal 
of analysis for most people to find out what they really think 
of themselves. 

There are two estimates that every man makes of his own 
abilities. One expresses what he would like to be; the other, 
what he fears that he really is. It is interesting to watch them 
fluctuate in moody souls, and still more interesting to try to 
find out the reasons for the fluctuations in ourselves. A transi- 
tory success, often in something of a trivial nature, sends us soar- 
ing in our own personal estimation. But amomentary display of 
weakness or ignorance, which perhaps is made lght of, or passes 
unnoticed by others, brings on a tremendous bear movement in 
our stock market—a veritable panic as we are brought face to 
face with the fact that we are not at all what we want to be and 
still pretend that we are. 

There are tremendous individual differences in the ease with 
which these bear and bull movements are brought on in the stock 
market of self-estimation. With some, their personal self-esteem 
is so hedged in with a system of defense reactions that nothing 
seems capable of disturbing it. Their ignorant blunders, imper- 
fections, sins, are promptly excused and all blame shifted on to 
the shoulders of others. Murmurings of a self-accusation are 
promptly suppressed and securely confined in the dungeons of 
the subeonscious. With others, the least shadow of failure or 
disappointment brings on a depression, deprives them of all 
self-confidence, robs them of energy, and takes away their desire 
and hope to do and accomplish. 


THE CONFLICT 175 


The reason for this individual difference is worthy of careful 
investigation. But, whatever the cause, we must realize that 
everyone both overestimates and underestimates himself. The 
overestimation tends to stay at the conscious level, the underesti- 
mation, because of its unfavorable character, is readily repressed 
to the depths of the unconscious. 

Significance of the Self-ideal—One cannot separate one’s 
estimate of himself from what he wants to be, for the idea that 
we have of ourselves is an ideomotor concept. We conceive an 
ideal of ourselves and this conception carries with it a tendency 
towards its own realization. The actual living out of the personal 
ideal is often a very difficult matter. We cannot be what we 
want to be because external factors are often necessary for the 
realization of the self-ideal. But external reality is not the 
only hindrance to our self-development. We cannot be what 
we want to be because the self-ideal contains incompatibilities, 
because we want two or more things that are mutually exclusive. 
These internal incompatibilities, as well as desire and its external 
hindrances, are the sources of life’s severest conflict, a conflict 
which lies at the root of the mental breakdown. 

The self-ideal itself is modified by the conflict. For defeat 
shows us that there are lines of development that for us at least 
are impracticable or impossible. It closes channels of instinctive 
outlet which our opportunities and abilities do not give us the 
power to keep open. Some, instead of accepting the situation as 
it is, blind themselves to reality and dream that they are what they 
only wish to be. These are proud and vain pretenders whom the 
world recognizes as such, but who have no insight into their own 
disability. Others, unable to accept the situation as it is, unable 
to compensate by dreams, unable to find an outlet in any other 
channel, react to an intolerable situation by some one of the many 
types of a mental breakdown. At the root of every mental break- 
down—every parataxis, every psychoneurosis, every psychosis 
—is the conflict over the realization of the self-ideal. The 
understanding of this ideal is, therefore, one of the most impor- 
tant of psychological problems. 


176 THE DRIVING FORCES OF HUMAN NATURE 


Factors That Determine the Self-ideal—1. Accidents of the 
environment. Among the accidents of the environment, one of 
the first that influences the individual is parental example. A 
child’s idea of himself and his future life is often built upon 
parental example. From parental example children turn to their 
teacher, and to a greater or less degree they are influenced by 
everyone with whom they come in personal contact. It should be 
noted that the external ideal of what one aims at has a psychologi- 
eal tendency to be transformed into the more or less subconscious 
idea of what one is by the alchemy of wish-fulfilment. There are 
common factors, therefore, in the production of self-esteem and 
the self-ideal. The ideals of history also have their influence, 
an influence more marked at puberty and more evident in girls 
than in boys.* 

Personal persuasion by word, when reinforced by the ties 
of friendship, has a powerful influence on determining just what 
the boy or girl wants to be in moral, economical, social, and 
political life. The influence of sermons, lectures, books, is also 
a factor, but secondary to the personal influence of example and 
verbal appeal. It would be hard for one to estimate the influence 
of his reading on the character of his career—harder still to pick 
out what he owes to sermons and lectures. Individually these 
factors usually count for but little; collectively, they form a 
powerful force in the development of the self-ideal. 

From reading, lectures, and sermons the adolescent acquires 
to a large extent his religious, moral, esthetic and social ideals. 
These open the way to sublimations that enable him to bear with 
peace and resignation the burdens and sorrows of life. At the 
same time, they are the source of his bitterest conflicts. Religion, 
morality, esthetics and the social order not only point out a 
path, but insist that it be followed. God and Eternity, the natu- 
ral principles of right, the beauty of virtue and truth, the demands 
of the social order are systems of thought and conduct, which once 
known and appreciated do not allow themselves to be forsaken 
without a protest. One must abide by their counsels continually, 


*Barnes, “Children’s Ideals,” Ped. Sem., 1900, VII, pp. 3-12, Fide 
Hall, Adolescence, II, 387. 


THE CONFLICT 177 


and every departure is, to him who has once understood, a source 
of keenest sorrow. In better natures the struggle between one’s 
lower and higher self is sometimes of far greater moment and 
fraught with far wider possibilities of keen suffering than the 
conflict which might result between any desire and the merely 
physical forces that delay or block its fulfilment. 

2. Hereditary abilities. Given general mental ability, a num- 
ber of careers are equally possible. Some, however, require spe- 
cial abilities or a peculiar combination of traits if they are to 
be pursued with success. Thus, for instance, a man who cannot 
distinguish any difference in pitch between two tones in the region 
of middle C that are thirty vibrations apart cannot become a 
great violinist no matter how much he may try, nor the leader 
of an orchestra, nor a great composer. A man who cannot over- 
come his timidity and shyness may make a successful lawyer if he 
confines himself to the preparation of cases; but if he wants to 
be a great criminal lawyer and stand and plead before a jury, 
no matter how much he may desire it, his attempt along this line 
will probably be a dismal failure. 

Along with the accidents of environment, hereditary abilities 
are factors in determining not only what we are, and what we 
want to be, but also what we think we are. Success pleases and 
satisfies; failure causes chagrin and discontent. A man feels 
out a place for himself in the world. He will not fit in every 
pocket. If he is in a bad hole, he wants to get out. He builds 
up other ideals for himself. If he is succeeding he attributes it 
to his own ability, he magnifies his self-importance, he desires 
a greater and ever greater success and exerts himself to the 
utmost to achieve it. 

3. Organ-inferiority. Alfred Adler® has developed the idea 
that the choice of a career depends not upon one’s native abilities, 
but upon some hereditary disability. This disability is due to 
some inferior organ whose inferiority is transmitted by heredity. 
When an organ is inferior, more work is thrown upon it and it 





5 See his two works: Studie tiber Minderwertigkeit von Organen, Berlin 
and Wien, 1907, p. 92; Uber den nervisen Charakter, Wiesbaden, 1912, p. 
195. See also infra, p. 279 ff. 


178 THE DRIVING FORCES OF HUMAN NATURE 


compensates for its disability either by hypertrophy or hyperfunc- 
tion or both. An individual who has an inferior organ realizes 
more or less painfully his disability. This realization, according 
to Adler, gives rise to a feeling of inferiority which lowers his 
personal self-esteem. This conflicts with a tendency present in 
everyone to elevate his own personal self-estimation (Hrhohung 
des Personlichkeitsgefiihls). From this conflict arises an attempt 
to make good the inherited inferiority by over-exertion. The indi- 
vidual creates for himself an ideal end in which he excels in 
the very ability in which he is deficient, and his whole life becomes 
thenceforth an attempt to dominate in the very field of his dis- 
ability. This reaction is termed by Adler the male protest 
(mannlichen Protest). 

Historical examples are pointed out by Adler in confirmation 
of this view, e.g., the deafness of Beethoven, the stammering 
of Demosthenes. 

There can be little doubt that organ-inferiority is sometimes 
a factor in the development of the self-ideal as well as inherited 
abilities. One attempts to make good his deficiency either because 
he is ashamed of it before others, or because length of life depends 
upon it. The childish reaction to anyone who says you cannot is 
to show him that you can. The very fact that others doubt your 
ability lends zest to the task of demonstrating it before them. If 
there is a natural defect that stands in anyone’s way, all the more 
credit to him if he should succeed. A eredit which in that ease 
he will not fail to take to himself. If he fails, his organ-inferiority 
will be his consolation, for he will say to himself: ‘‘If I had only 
had the ability of others I would have succeeded as well and 
better than they.”’ 

One who has begun to make good a defect by over-exertion to 
cover up what he is ashamed of, or to take measures to see that 
his life will not be shortened any more than necessary, may become 
interested in some line of work and then pursue it not only because 
of its compensatory value to him, but also because it is attractive 
in itself. In such a ease the choice of a career is determined by 
organ-inferiority, just as in other cases chance or friendly advice 
perform the same function. 


THE CONFLICT 179 


Can we go further and say that the only determinant of the 
self-ideal is organ-inferiority, that our disabilities and not our 
abilities make us what we are? White seriously proposes this 
question in his Mechanisms of Character Formation.® 

‘“ What shall we say of this organ-inferiority as the basis of 
the conflict? Can it be true that all growth, all development 
comes from the expenditure of effort in trying to overcome some 
defect? In this sense all strength has its origin in weakness? 
And if so, should we not rather welcome suffering because only 
through trials that tax us to our limit can the full of our powers 
come to function.’’ 

Sweeping generalizations are usually found on careful exam- 
- ination to admit of many exceptions. Any attempt to make organ- 
inferiority the sole factor in the development of the self-ideal is 
bound to make shipwreck on the cold, hard facts of experience. 
It is one factor, but by no means the only one. When it acts it 
supposes two conditions at least: 

(1) The organ-inferiority must not be such that hyperfune- 
tion is impossible. 

(11) Organ-inferiority must coexist with general and special 
ability or there can be no adequate compensatory overactivity. 

Thus, for instance, Beethoven with his deafness is pointed out 
as an example of one who by musical development made up for 
his deficiency of hearing. But, could Beethoven have made him- 
self a great musician simply because he suffered from a slowly 
increasing deafness? There are many deaf people, but very 
few Beethovens. Beethoven’s development was due to native 
ability rather than organ-inferiority. It is probable his deafness 
had little to do with his choice of his career as a musician. This 
was forced upon him by his father when he was as yet very 
young, and in all probability before he had experienced his 
organ-inferiority. 

Organ-inferiority is a factor, but only a secondary one in the 
development of the self-ideal. It is like the catalyzer in a chemi- 
eal reaction that accelerates it and makes the transformation take 
place in an appreciable amount. But, what good is a ecatalyzer 

* New York, 1916, p. 278. EY it te 


180 THE DRIVING FORCES OF HUMAN NATURE 


without its reacting chemicals, and what is the value of the manly 
protest in one who lacks the ability to back it up? 

Conquest and Defeat.—Happiness and contentment are the 
result of working out a harmonious solution to the problems that 
arise from the conflicting elements of human impulse and desire. 
Success in an undertaking that one has set his heart upon accom- 
plishing does not necessarily mean that a harmonious solution 
to the problems of life will be found. One might amass millions 
and be further from happiness and contentment than when he 
started out on his career. We have many impulses and many 
desires. Only when they are subordinated to some one thing 
that makes life really worth while, only then can we stand the 
trials and necessary repressions that our ideals and the accidents 
of life impose upon us. 

Religion is the only sublimation that enables man to view 
time and eternity with perfect peace and content. Art, music, 
literature, philosophy, science, social work, have, as a matter of 
fact, often made lfe endurable to those who for one reason or 
another have failed to attain the peace and content that is the 
natural blessing of a happy home. Any of these things serve to 
make life relatively worth while, if, as Aristotle postulates, one 
is blessed with a certain amount of the goods of this life. 

Purely natural happiness in this world may be obtained by 
directing one’s efforts consistently and successfully to the estab- 
lishment of a happy home-life, and safeguarding one’s self against 
calamity by the development of a normal power of satisfaction 
in working for the welfare of others or in zeal for at least the 
enjoyment if not the advancement of art, music, literature, phil- 
osophy or science. 

The man who is truly successful in the conflicts of life has 
many wholesome interests, all of which he subordinates to some 
one worthy end. If this end is religious, his happiness has a 
stability that neither death nor calamity has the power to shake. 

The man who is overcome in the conflict fails because he does 
not find anything that makes life worth while. There are various 
results which arise from this defeat. One is the attempt to for- 
get by the active pursuit of pleasures. Another is plain discon- 


THE CONFLICT 181 


tent, sorrow, moodiness. A common type of failure is the cynic. 
There are two elements in the popular concept of cynicism. One 
is a sneering disbelief in the virtue and honesty of others. This 
always means that the cynic is bad himself and dislikes to think 
that anyone is better than he. The other is a contemptuous feel- 
ing of superiority. He is compensating for his consciousness of 
guilt. This feeling of superiority often takes the form of a 
sense of enlightenment. He knows more than the common rabble 
and his superior knowledge enables him to shake off the fetters 
of moral superstition by which the ignorant are bound. 

Eixtending beyond the limits of the normal reactions are the 
parataxes, psychoneuroses, and psychoses. Since Adolph Meyer 
wrote his Dynamic Interpretation of Dementia Precoz, the ten- 
_ dency has grown ever stronger and stronger to regard that psy- 
chosis in particular as a mental reaction to the difficulties of life. 
The individual acknowledges his defeat and retires into the cell 
of his own personality. Life no longer has any possibilities for 
him and so he shrinks into his dream-life with himself. He has 
lost the battle and retreats from the scene of conflict. 

The important lesson that the study of the conflict teaches us 
is that the undesirable human reactions are dependent on its 
outcome. The discontented grouch, the sarcastic, the cynical, the 
psychoneurotic and the demented are what they are because they 
have failed. They need not have become what they are. They 
have mismanaged their lives. They belong to those whom Dante 
refers to in his description of Hell as le genti dolorose ch’hanno 
perduto Ww ben dell’ intelletto (Inferno, Canto IIT, 17-18). They 
must have guidance now and direction from one who knows better 
than they. If this is so, the psychologist who would come to their 
aid should not only understand their type of reaction, but should 
also be one who has not mismanaged his own life, and has not 
muddled his own affairs. That he may understand how to help 
them it is also necessary to know the various mechanisms of 
human readjustment. Let us, therefore, turn now to the study 
-of mental adjustments. 


CHAPTER IV 
PSYCHOTAXES AND PARATAXES 


The Name “Psychotaxis.”—When a new name is proposed 
for scientific facts it should always be with great reluctance and 
after long deliberation. Some authors have made their works diffi- 
cult reading by yielding too readily to the impulse to create a new 
terminology. It is, consequently, with great hesitancy that the 
name psychotaxis is proposed for the phenomena we are about 
to consider. It is hoped, however, that it will serve to unify a 
variety of facts which have much in common, and which, so far, 
have not yet been subsumed in any general schema of mental 
abilities. Many of these phenomena—the defense reaction, com- 
pensation, sublimation—were unknown to the older psychologists, 
or at least were not subjected to scientific psychological analysis. 
They are terms which came with psychoanalysis, a movement 
which arose independently of scientific psychology, and which 
still remains a separate trend of thought. Yet the two must be 
brought together and supplement each other by surveying a com- 
mon, field of interest from different points of view. 

In choosing the term ‘‘psychotaxis,’’ the attempt was made to 
make use of roots that are not wholly unfamiliar. We have 
already pointed out Verworn’s use of the Greek rdér¢ instead of 
tpénog to designate adjustments of animals to simple physical 
stimuli. Thus he speaks of phototaxis, thermotaxis, galvano- 
taxis, ete. But the term ‘‘tropism’’ was already in use, and there 
is no good reason for discarding it. In the present instance we 
wish a root to designate the tendency of the mind to adjust itself 
to pleasant and unpleasant situations. Though ‘‘taxis’’ suggests 
a passive arrangement rather than an active adjustment, those 
of us who have become familiar with its use to designate the move- 
ments of the protozoa will feel that no great violence is done if 
it is used to signify the mental adjustments of individuals to 
pleasant and unpleasant situations—especially since such reac- 

182 


PSYCHOTAXES AND PARATAXES 183 


tions often consist in a rearrangement of one’s ideas in which 
some drop below consciousness and others appear on the surface. 
The Application of the Term.—We have just considered 
motor impulses and sensory impulses. Are there no impulses 
connected with our emotional life other than the emotions them- 
selves? Yes. For we have very strong innate tendencies to 
enjoy to the fullest all pleasant situations, and to get out of or 
avoid to the uttermost all unpleasant ones. The tendency to 
enjoy pleasant states of mind or to make use of pleasant emotions 
and feelings can without any great violence be subsumed under 
our definition of an impulse—the tendency to make use of a 
mental function. This tendency by analogy with the tropism or 
taxis could be termed a positive psychotaxis. The opposite ten- 
deney to avoid unpleasant situations is a negative psychotaxis. 
The great variety and richness of the psychotaxes is to be found 
in the negative class. To enjoy, one needs to do little more than 
let things take their course, or drive on in the pursuit of the 
pleasure that is in sight. But to avoid is a difficult and complex 
process and leads the mind into ways that are dark and devious. 
Relation of Consciousness to the Psychotaxes.—T'o tend to 
avoid an unpleasant situation, to sink back into the ease and 
delight of a pleasant one, needs no conscious and voluntary effort. 
One may reinforce the tendency by conscious voluntary action, 
but it is not necessary. The tendencies are almost reflex in 
character. So true is this, that individuals are frequently un- 
aware themselves of tendencies that are at work in their own 
mind. This tendency of the psychotaxes to unconscious levels 
is helped out by the fact that they are often unmanly make- 
shifts, which, if seen in their true light, would make the individual 
appear contemptible in his own eyes and in those of others. Thus, 
for instanee, in the psychotaxis of avoidance by disabling mechan- 
isms: A man’s duty is unpleasant. He exaggerates a physical 
difficulty, and so becomes unable to perform his duty, and thus 
gets out of an unpleasant situation. These cases are very com- 
‘mon. A careful study of them will seldom give the impression 
of pure malingering. The physical disabilities are sometimes 
such as can be produced by hypnosis, but are beyond voluntary 


184 THE DRIVING FORCES OF HUMAN NATURE 


eontrol. The man is not conscious that he is pretending. He 
wants to think, and have others think, that he would come up 
to the mark if he could. Consequently, the very thought that 
he is trying to avoid his duty is repulsive to him. He does not 
allow himself to dwell on it for a moment. He mechanically puts 
it out of his mind, and the whole disabling mechanism becomes 
unconscious. Some individuals have a kind of dark suspicion 
of what is going on in their own minds—especially those given 
to self-analysis; but others are so taken up with the idea of the 
purity of their motives and the innocence of their character, that 
they do not see what is perfectly apparent to the disinterested 
observer. In such cases our enemies often judge us better than 
our friends. 

Again, it may happen, as in the compensations, that one is 
conscious of the satisfaction and happiness he gets out of certain 
pursuits, but does not know the precise reason why this particu- 
lar activity is so pleasing to him. Thus, as we shall see, novel 
reading is a compensatory psychotaxis. Many people take inde- 
scribable pleasure in a certain story, because in reading it they 
live through pleasures that have never been theirs. But, if 
asked why they like it, they would never give this as the reason, 
though they might or might not realize it, were it pointed out 
to them. 

In the psychotaxes, therefore, we have mechanisms that are 
partly conscious, partly unconscious, with all shades of transition 
between the two. . 

The Classification of the Psychotaxes——We may, as we 
have indicated, distinguish positive and negative psychotaxes, 
just as we do the tropisms. The tendencies that we have to enjoy 
pleasant situations we may group under the name of ‘‘the per- 
sistent drive.’’ They do not vary very much, though, eventually, 
they may become associated with very complex mental operations. 
The negative psychotaxes, on the other hand, are at first sight 
many and various. Most of them may, however, be brought 
under a few headings. The first class are psychotaxes that pre- 
sent no solution—not even an inadequate one—for the unpleasant 
situation. These are depression and anxiety. There is a natural 


PSYCHOTAXES AND PARATAXES 185 


and innate tendency to be depressed, to worry and fret over 
unpleasant situations. But this does not get the difficulty out 
of the way. The second class embraces psychotaxes which involve 
some kind of solution for the difficulty, however inadequate. 
There are three possibilities here. The unhappy eventuality may 
in some manner be avoided. Tendencies which merely aim at 
avoiding unpleasant situations have been aptly termed defense 
yeactions. Here we have a large group of reactions. One may 
put the unpleasant situation out of mind if it is a mental affair. 
One may shut out the world from contact with his mind, if sur- 
roundings are harsh and unpleasant, and become surly, cynical, 
sour, silent, secretive, negativistic. One may become incapact- 
tated by general weakness or special disability, if his duties 
become very unpleasant, and there is any way of throwing the 
burden of self-support or family sustenance on relatives, friends, 
or the associated charities. One may avoid the realization of 
personal blame by an exalted sense of his own righteousness, and 
transfer it to others by suspicions and accusations. One may 
keep others from realizing his own real desires by a solemn face, 
or a violent, old-maid shock-reaction at the recountal of the sins 
of others. All these examples are instances of native human 
tendencies which appear spontaneously in anyone, given the 
proper circumstances, but not all appear with equal facility in 
all types of individuals. 

Besides getting out of an unpleasant situation, one may seek 
to make up for its unpleasantness by some new form of enjoy- 
ment. If this is attempted along more or less the same level of 
satisfaction as the lost pleasure which creates the unpleasant 
situation, then the reaction is termed compensation. Thus, one 
may imagine the fulfilment of unsatisfied desire. One may com- 
pensate for an unhappy life by becoming a wit. One may go to 
a vaudeville show to drown his discontent. One may transfer his 
affections from one person to another. One may appeal for sym- 
pathy—sometimes by making himself appear sicker than he is— 
- by convulsive seizures, ete. Some throw themselves against their 
enemy hoping for unjust severity that others may see how badly 
they are treated. 

13 


186 THE DRIVING FORCES OF HUMAN NATURE 


If, however, satisfaction is sought in pleasures of a higher 
nature, we speak of the reaction as sublimation. Thus, a woman 
disappointed in love may become a social worker, or give of her 
millions to build an orphan asylum, or become devoted to music, 
art, literature, etc. Music offers to certain natures channels of 
outlet when the ordinary interests and affections of life are 
denied them. So, also, literature, art and science. Religion is 
the natural sublimation of human desires, always possible and 
always effective, no matter how great the calamities that 
confront us. 

Along with these natural tendencies to avoid unpleasant situ- 
ations, to compensate for disappointments, to sublimate life’s 
energies into higher channels, there is often an attempt to meet 
the situation squarely, ask oneself what can be done, and then 
actively repress certain tendencies and give scope and place to 
others. This rational readjustment and active repression is 
something quite different from an impulse. It is a directive 
power that is exercised over impulse. It is not a psychotaxis, 
but a voluntary effort that is made under the influence of intel- 
lectual insight and ideals of conduct. 

Abnormal Emotional Adjustments or Parataxes.—The 
impulses to adjust oneself to difficulties that we have just classi- 
fied are, in their general outlines, common to all human beings. 
All of us have a tendency to be depressed and anxious, to avoid 
unpleasant situations, to compensate for disappointments and 
sublimate our desires. Any of them, if carried to excess, may 
become abnormal and distinctly pathological. Thus, if depression 
deepens into absolute inactivity, if anxiety incapacitates one for 
ordinary duties, if the tendency to shrink into oneself passes into 
mutism and refusal of food, the adjustment is clearly abnormal. 
Some adjustments are essentially pathological—for example, to 
protest against a situation by a series of convulsive seizures, or 
to incapacitate oneself from duty by a paralyzed arm or leg. 
It should be noted that none of the reactions here referred to 
is purely voluntary sham or malingering. To make up one’s 
mind to escape a difficulty by pretending some kind of a dis- 
ability is not a psychotaxis—but a rational voluntary adjustment. 


PSYCHOTAXES AND PARATAXES 187 


There are, however, a number of functional disabilities, that is, 
conditions that have no organic lesion or disease as a pathologi- 
cal foundation. These had best be conceived of as due to an 
unconscious pretence. They are often looked upon as hysterical 
symptoms. Just as there are all stages of transition between 
the conscious and the unconscious, so also there are between 
malingering and hysteria. 

These abnormal adjustments are very common. They often 
exist as the sole or the main evidence of a pathological state. Thus, 
hysterical convulsive seizures may occur in a patient without 
any of the so-called permanent stigmata of hysteria—or an hys- 
terical contraction without any other stigmata and without the 
convulsive seizures of the classical hysteria. This monosympto- 
matic hysteria is common in children and was a frequent form 
taken by the war neuroses. Many of these conditions seem far 
too simple, and clear up far too quickly and easily to be classified 
among the major psychoses, or even with the psychoneuroses. One 
might speak of them as abnormal psychotaxes. It seems best, 
however, to use a single word which will designate their abnor- 
mal character without the use of an adjective. The Greek prepo- 
sition mapa may signify in composition something that is wrong 
or amiss. We are already familiar with it in-paraphrenia, one of 
the synonyms for dementia precox. The term parataxis, since 
its roots are not wholly unfamiliar, may serve as a fairly 
expressive designation of these abnormal reactions, even though 
it is already in use with a different signification (the opposite 
of syntaxis). 

The Parataxes and the Psychoneuroses.—Reflex action, 
impulse, desire, and emotions are at times elements of complexes 
that we term instinctive reactions. Thus, in defending oneself 
against danger, there will be an emotion of fear, a desire to 
flee, impulses to strike, vasomotor reflexes along with the reflex 
secretion of adrenalin and its effects on the mobilization of sugar, 
the fuel for muscular action, on muscular tonus, ete. The whole 
operation of the instinct of self-preservation in this case is a 
very complex affair, some of the elements of which we have just 
been considering. Among these elements are the psychotaxes. 


188 THE DRIVING FORCES OF HUMAN NATURE 


Now the parataxes may be considered as bearing a similiar rela- 
tion to the psychoneuroses and the major psychoses. A soldier 
comes back from the front with the diagnosis, ‘‘shell-shock.’’ | 
There is nothing the matter with him except that his right arm 
is trembling in a gross, disorderly fashion, so that it cannot be 
used. With a few relaxation exercises the tremor disappears in 
a couple of minutes. He is sent to the ward and allowed a few 
days’ rest. In afew conversations he is given a little insight into 
hysterical disabilities, and in a short time he is sent back to the 
front; and, marabile dictu, makes good, stays, and does his duty. 
Has a case of hysteria been cured by such a simple procedure? 
Probably not, but only a condition which might develop into 
hysteria, becoming more and more complex in its ramifications 
into the individual’s life, had it not been taken at its onset. What 
one was dealing with here was only one element in the hysterical 
croup of reactions, a simple parataxis, and not a psychoneurosis. 

Thus, the parataxes are elements of the psychoses and the 
psychoneuroses as the psychotaxes are elements of the instinc- 
tive reactions. 


CHAPTER V 
THE PARATAXIS OF DEPRESSION 


Depression as an Impulse.—Depression 1s a form of sadness, 
and as such, a typical emotion and not an impulse. Emotions, 
- however, in a perfectly normal mental life, are transient condi- 
tions. Calamities happen, but the unfortunate sufferer, after 
a period of sadness and loss of interest in everything, finds oceu- 
pation and renewed zest in his work. The ability to recover from 
misfortune, to shake off sorrow, to arouse oneself from depression, 
varies in different individuals. In those who lack this ability 
we find not only its negation, but also a positive tendency to 
remain sad and nurse their sorrow. If one whom they love very 
much dies, a certain sense of fidelity to the departed seems to 
demand that new interests be shut out, and that they remain 
faithful to his memory by their continued sorrowing. Or, if 
they lose their money, or their position and station in life, or 
fail in some enterprise, they are not only sad, but seem to want 
to remain sad. Sadness procures a sympathy which is not be- 
stowed upon the gay pretender who shakes off his sorrow and 
does not allow others to perceive that he suffers. Many have a 
keen eraving for sympathy. Thus, a little girl once remarked 
tome: ‘‘Don’t you think it’s nice to be sick and have everybody 
be so sorry for you?’’ So, also with sorrow, many think it nice 
to look sad, and have their friends pet and comfort them, so 
they stay sad, and their friends help to keep them sad in the 
vain attempt to console them and to remove their sorrow by 
lavishly bestowing their tender caresses. The faint-hearted crave 
these manifestations of sympathy so much that they nurse their 
sorrow to obtain them. Thus, while sadness and depression are 
emotions, they are, nevertheless, associated at times with an im- 
pulse in virtue of which the individual tends to persevere in 
his sorrow. 

It cannot be doubted that in some cases we find special mental 
factors, we might say extraneous conditions, such as a sense of 

189 


199 THE DRIVING FORCES OF HUMAN NATURE 


fidelity, or a craving for sympathy, that stimulate the tendency 
to be sad. We must not forget, however, that sadness itself, apart 
from extraneous mental considerations, has a kind of mechanism 
of self-preservation. It slows down the flow of thought. In 
pathological eases this slowing may be so great that conversation 
with the patient is a slow, tedious process, because of the time 
it takes him to answer simple questions. Reaction-time experi- 
ments show that the time of association of these patients is much 
lengthened. It is thus difficult for them to consider the various 
possibilities that lie open to them and to work out a rational 
solution for their difficulties. When someone else proposes such 
a solution, his words reach the auditory centre, but there their 
influence ends. Propose a trip, or a new occupation, or a course 
of study, to a normal youth and it at once awakens in his mind 
a whole panorama of imagery and vast vistas of possible achieve- 
ment. But in the time of sorrow, associations flow so slowly that 
these possibilities do not occur, and even if one points them out, 
the sufferer cannot weld them into his scheme of interests. For 
that scheme of interests has been shattered by his sorrow. His 
centre of ambition is gone and his mind works too slowly to build 
a new one, and to plan for the future. Thus sorrow, by its natu- 
ral effects on the mind, produces a tendency to remain sad. This 
tendency is usually reinforced by extraneous factors, such as 
a sense of obligation to remain sad in order to show one’s fidelity 
to a soul departed, or to a lost cause, or from an innate craving 
for sympathy. This impulse tending to perpetuate the emotion 
of sorrow must be distinguished from the depression which it 
fosters. It is a common type of reaction to the difficulties of 
life, presenting, however, no solution for them whatsoever and, 
therefore, demanding modification and control. 

The Stages of Depression.—It would be wrong to look upon 
every tendency to maintain a state of sorrow as pathological. 
Sadness procures sympathy, and sympathy, perhaps, has a valu- 
able function to perform. It results in mutual help and is one 
of the stimuli to altruism which is a very useful acquisition of 
the human race. Few would be willing to banish all sorrow and 
all sympathy from a world such as ours in which misfortune is 


THE PARATAXIS OF DEPRESSION 191 


a daily occurrence. And perhaps it is a good thing after all 
to slow down for a time the torrent of human thought which so 
often rushes headlong and heedlessly through channels and 
courses over which reason exercises no control. To stop and 
think, and make a rational plan of one’s life is a consummation 
that is often obtained only as the result of misfortune and the 
time it gives to pause and consider. Because of this useful and 
purposive character we may look upon many tendencies to remain 
sad as normal impulses. These normal tendencies are the psycho- 
taxes of depression. Between them and the depressive form of 
the manic-depressive psychosis there are a number of conditions 
which block the individual’s activities and are injurious to his 
normal mental development. They are, therefore, to be con- 
sidered as distinctly pathological. On the other hand, they clear 
up so readily under simple mental treatment, that they should 
be distinguished from the psychosis of depression which runs 
its course wholly unaffected by any psychotherapy whatsoever. 

In my experience with depressed conditions, psychotaxis, 
parataxis, and psychosis shade into each other without any clear 
line of demarcation. If this be the ease, the psychosis of depres- 
sion is only an outgrowth of a normal human impulse. 

Let us consider now some of these transitional conditions: 


THE PARATAXIS OF DEPRESSION: EXAMPLES 


A situation rather than an incident is at times the apparent 
cause of a depression. Thus, a woman of forty-six became de- 
pressed when her husband was put on night work. The depres- 
sion, however, did not arise from sympathy with him over the 
hardship he had to put up with. The result of his night work 
was that he was around the house a great deal during the day. 
He was nagging, irritable, subject to explosive outbursts of anger, 
was harsh and cruel to their boy, and made life unhappy for the 
little fellow. She had had two previous periods of depression. 
In the first she spent four months in an asylum. The second 
- lasted for six months, but she was not sent to an institution. 
This, her third depression, did not come to full development. It 
cleared up in the course of about two weeks. The factors in the 


192 THE DRIVING FORCES OF HUMAN NATURE 


treatment were so simple, and the cure so rapid, that we can be 
sure that we were not dealing in this case with a major psy- 
chosis, but only the innate trend to be sad and depressed, and 
perhaps nurse her sorrow in an unpleasant situation in which 
she felt that she was unkindly and unjustly treated. A reaction 
type such as this raises the question: Is the parataxis of depres- 
sion the root of the manic-depressive psychosis? In this case, 
where the woman had two previous attacks, in one of which she 
had to be sent to an asylum, it seems very likely that the incipient 
symptoms of the third attack might easily have developed into a 
major psychosis. 

The elements of treatment in this case were: 

(a) Reasoning her into a more rational attitude towards 
her husband’s outbursts of temper. This, by the 
way, resulted not only in helping her, but also in 
quieting her husband. 

(b) Allowing her to follow her impulse of adopting a 
small child from an infant asylum. 

(c) Stimulating her propensity to find consolation in re- 
ligious exercises. 

Except for minor spells of sadness, there was no relapse in 
over five years during which the case has been followed. 

When one human being centres his affection on another, and 
anything occurs to disturb the relationship between them, the 
inevitable result is a depression. How deep the depression is going 
to be depends on the ability of the depressed patient to find other 
centres of interest and affection. A woman of thirty-one came 
to the clinic complaining that for about eight months past she 
had been suffering with abnormal sadness. At times it was so 
heavy that it seemed that something was smothering her, that 
the outlook for the future was absolutely hopeless, ete. Her mind 
was a blank. Her sadness seemed unreasonable to her. She had 
the typical sad and anxious expression of the depressed patient. 
With treatment, the whole condition cleared up completely in 
about a month. She was seen some months later, very happy and 
cheerful, an altogether different type of woman from the sad, 


THE PARATAXIS OF DEPRESSION 193 


worried patient who came to the clinic. The treatment consisted 
in the following elements: 

(a) Seeking the cause of her depression. This was found 
from its history. It commenced about the time the 
man to whom she was engaged became indifferent 
and ceased calling upon her. 

(b) Dream analysis: This showed that the man to whom 
she was engaged was not her ideal, but another man 
to whom she was not engaged. Thus, it was possible 
to argue that the outlook was not so black because 
the man to whom she was engaged had left her. It 
was really a fortunate incident. She must seek her 
ideal elsewhere, and it should be possible to find. it. 

(c) Being an educated woman, it was possible to offer her 
some outlet in reading and study. 

(d) The outlet of religion was in her case readily utilized, 
and of no little assistance. 

A past delinquency sometimes acts as a mental boomerang 
and intensifies or perhaps produces, by association, a para- 
taxic depression. 

A woman of forty came to the clinic complaining of sadness 
that had lasted without interruption for about seven months. 
Her behavior and talk were normal, her face sad, but not so much 
so as to exclude occasional smiles. About five months previous to 
what she regarded as the onset of her depression, her six-year-old 
child died of pneumonia. This made her sad, but she did not 
commence to lose interest in things for about five months. Then 
she became inefficient in her household work and unable to care 
for the children. She felt that the family must move back into 
the neighborhood they had left when her child died. This was 
done at no little sacrifice and expense. After only a few days ~ 
in the old environment, she broke down completely and was unable 
to do anything. 

An attempt to discover mental factors by the Freudian method 
of free association led finally to the following complex: She 
expressed a fear that she was being punished. When asked why, 
she told us that when she was about twenty she broke up the 


194 THE DRIVING FORCES OF HUMAN NATURE 


happiness of a young couple who were about to be married, by 
getting the man to court her. She cared very little for him, but 
her vanity was touched by his attentions, and she took delight in 
triumphing over her rival. Their marriage did not take place and 
she soon dropped her foolish admirer. Now she feels an irresist- 
ible impulse to break up her own home and go elsewhere. ‘‘My 
children’s affections are turned away from me. They love their 
father rather than myself. They love other children, but they 
don’t love me. I have lost the affection of those I love. I want 
to take my children away from their father and away from all 
other children that they may turn to me.’’ 

After this outburst, she expressed great regret for having 
told me her history, wanted to destroy the record, left the clinic 
and did not return again. 

In the cases just mentioned we have conditions that SBraNe 
the psychoses; the last one was perhaps a real psychosis in which 
there was an active etiological mental factor. Had it not been 
for the memory of her past delinquency, and the idea that her 
affliction was its punishment, she might have borne the loss of 
her child without becoming so depressed as to be unfit for work, 
and without the natural tendency of a mother to be jealous of 
the love between father and child becoming pathologically accen- 
tuated. In all these cases the constitutional factor which slows 
down the flow of thought in sorrow and produces a tendency 
to brood over one’s misfortunes, was perhaps more active than 
the sense of fidelity or appeal for sympathy above mentioned. 
These factors are especially prominent in depressions following 
the death of near relatives. The content of the patient’s thought 
will at times reveal their presence. Thus, a woman, who for 
months after her husband’s death was very much depressed, fre- 
quently expressed the opinion that the marriage legislation of 
the Catholic church should be reformed so as to forbid the crime 
of second marriages. The feeling that she must be faithful to 
her husband’s memory was active in her mind, and was, in part, 
responsible for her depression. The depression was an outward 
sign of her fidelity. Lest some psychoanalyst would attribute 
her horror of remarriage to a subconscious desire to marry some- 


THE PARATAXIS OF DEPRESSION 195 


one else, it may be stated that nothing in this patient’s history 
suggested any real foundation for this hypothesis, and she lived 
in widowhood for over fifteen years without remarrying. 

The Etiology of the Depressions.— Whereas, any unpleasant 
event may produce a feeling of sadness, not every incident can 
eall forth the tendency to remain sad. The incident must be one 
that affects profoundly the individual’s hierarchy of desires. It 
renders him for the time being hopeless, so that he feels sorry 
for himself, feels that others should pity him, has no longer any- 
thing on which to build, for the keystone in the arch of his 
desires has been knocked to the ground. Thus, the situation in 
which he finds himself is impossible. If he does not change, and 
he does not find new interests, the psychotaxis takes on abnormal 
features leading to unreasonable persistence in the signs of 
erief, becomes a parataxis, or may even deepen into the psychosis 
with its accompanying utter incapacitation for the round of 
daily duties. 

That an abnormal reaction occurs in some men, and not 
in others, depends to a large extent upon their inherited constitu- 
tion. Patients suffering from manic-depressive psychosis have 
more insane relatives than normal individuals, and these insane 
relatives are frequently of the manic-depressive type. It is inter- 
esting to note also that the manic-depressive cases are, to a large 
extent, recruited from those who take to the Bohemian type of 
society, as artists, musicians, poets, ete. There is, therefore, in 
every depression an hereditary organic factor which makes the 
patient physically disposed to this type of reaction. We have no 
knowledge of the more intimate nature of this psychophysical 
disposition. We have a right to assume some kind of physical 
factor, because it is hereditary and must, therefore, be trans- 
mitted by the germ eells, and, in all probability, by some one 
chromosome of these germ cells. We know, too, that a tendency 
to emotional reaction may come and go with a physical condition. 
Shakespeare speaks of sleep that ‘‘knits up the raveled sleave of 
-eare.’’ Most of us have experienced the truth of his insight into 
human nature. When tired and worn out, all outlook on life 
seems possible only through glasses that are as blue as indigo. 


196 THE DRIVING FORCES OF HUMAN NATURE 


But after rest and sleep, one rises with a new view of the world. 
Sadness and depression have vanished. If this is the case, it 
would seem that fatigue products are capable of influencing our 
mood, and, if so, why should there not be a physical factor in 
our tendency to sadness and depression ? 

In every depression there are, then, two factors. One is the 
native disposition, an hereditary, physical, organic condition ; the 
other is the psychical factor consisting of the incident, and the 
patient’s hierarchy of desires. There are cases in which one or 
the other of these factors dominates almost to the exclusion of 
the other. The hereditary factor is at times so pronounced that 
some patients spend the greater part of their life in a profound 
depression for which no adequate psychological cause can be 
found. In some, every spell of sadness has its mental motivation. 
When no mental factor is found we have no right to argue that 
it is absent. Depressed patients are peculiarly reticent. Nor 
can we argue from the suddenness of the onset or cessation of a 
depression, that it must be without any mental factor. Depres- 
sions are said to come at times like a stroke of lightning with- 
out any apparent cause. I have had few opportunities of exam- 
ining such eases, but it is within the realm of possibility that 
repressed trends of discontent suddenly manifest their power in 
virtue of associations with apparently trivial incidents or per- 
ceptions that seem indifferent. Such unnoticed perceptions are 
at times the starting point of apparently unmotivated trends 
of thought." : 

That any individual falls into a depression depends upon his 
inherited constitution and the strain to which it is subjected. 
Most of our soldiers, for example, went through the war with 
no more than the ordinary periods of blues to which all men are 
subject. One poor private fell into a profound depression with 
suicidal tendencies when, separated from his organization, he got 
among complete strangers in the mud and rain of sunny France. 

Treatment of Depression. The prophylactic treatment of de- 
pression should strike first at the hereditary factor. Persons 


1 Cf. Kiesow’s work on Freisteigende Vorstellungen in the Archiv. fiir 
d. ges. Psychol., 1906. 


THE PARATAXIS OF DEPRESSION 197 


belonging to a family in which a manic-depressive psychosis has 
made its appearance should not marry into a similar family. To 
forbid their marrying at all would, I think, carry practice beyond 
the authorization of well-established theory. It is not certain 
that this hereditary defect cannot be weeded out by continuous 
intermarriage with stable mental stock. The defect is recessive 
and not dominant, and as long as such families marry into stable 
ones the children will have ordinarily stable constitutions. The 
next prophylactic measure is to provide the individual by edu- 
cation with a foundation for multiple interests in life. The pur- 
suit of knowledge for its own sake, of literature, science, music, 
art, can give a great deal of satisfaction and happiness. The 
uneducated who suffer from some calamity after passing the 
prime of life have little to compensate them for their loss and 
look forward to nothing but a colorless and lonely future. 

Once a depression has occurred, the earlier it is studied by a 
competent psychiatrist, the better. In the cases cited, some sugges- 
tions for treatment have been given. One must try first of all 
to find the true cause of the depression and then open compensa- 
tory lines of activity, and assist the patient to adopt a more 
reasonable attitude toward his difficulties, by analysis, reason, 
and persuasion. 


CHAPTER VI 
THE heey atc, OF ANXIETY 


Anxiety as an Impulse.—Anxiety, like depression, is a word 
which is usually regarded as referring to an emotion. As an 
emotion it is something very much akin to fear. Popular usage 
seems to speak of fear when one anticipates bodily harm in the 
actual presence of danger, but when one is uneasy about some 
mental ill, or a physical ill which may sometime happen, but does 
not now impend, the term ‘‘anxiety’’ is often used. Again, the 
word ‘‘anxiety’’ is used interchangeably with fear, or at least 
with fear of moderate intensity. | 

With the feeling of apprehension there is associated a definite 
tendency which serves to perpetuate the emotion. This is the 
tendency to bring up again and again to the mind the anticipated 
evil. A state of anxiety consists in the ever-recurring activity 
of this tendency, and its inevitable result, an emotion of 
fear. Along with this tendency to picture the anticipated evil 
there are motor tendencies, often unreasonable, and wholly inade- 
quate to bring about a solution of the difficulty. This fretful 
activity is the characteristic associate of anxiety. 

When, therefore, we speak of a psychotaxis of anxiety we 
are referring, not to an emotion, but to a fairly common impulsive 
type of reaction to an unpleasant situation. This consists mainly 
in an impulse to consider over and over again unpleasant 
possibilities. , 

The Stages of Anxiety—To be worried about a situation 
likely to be fraught with dangerous or unpleasant results, to have 
a tendency to consider this possibility repeatedly is, within 
limits, a normal and useful reaction—a healthy psychotaxis. It 
makes for a wise and careful management of our life. If we did 
not consider again and again the possibility of mistakes, errors, 
misfortunes, we would rush heedlessly into danger and fail to 
shield our lives from harm. It is an ability that must be exercised 
prior to the solution of the problems that confront us, and there 

198 


THE PARATAXIS OF ANXIETY 199 


is a strong innate tendency to do so. When, however, no entirely 
satisfactory solution appears, certain types of individuals keep 
on going over and over again the possibility that the worst will 
some day come true—or perhaps that it is even now happening 
without their knowledge. Thus, when a man is guilty of some 
habitual delinquency, he fears that he will be discovered. He 
does not want to give up the delinquency; but on the other hand, 
he does not want anyone to suspect him. The rational solution 
would be to give up the bad habit, but he is caught in its meshes 
and feels powerless. The possibility of the misfortune of being 
‘discovered keeps recurring and demands a solution. The con- 
ceivable remote possibilities keep multiplying till, perhaps, in 

almost every action he feels that he is betraying himself. And so 
- anormal and healthy reaction passes into an abnormal and injuri- 
ous one—the psychotaxis becomes parataxis. The further 
erowth of this type of reaction depends upon the constitutional 
make-up. It seems most readily, however, to pass into or be- 
come associated with the anxious depressions, dementia precox, 
the compulsion neuroses, or the phobias. 

The Parataxis of Anxiety: Examples.—The first example 
that we give came under observation when the patient had 
already, perhaps, passed into the stage of a psychosis. 

The patient was a nurse of about thirty-five who had been 
worried to the point of incapacitation by anxiety that others 
would think that she was not doing her work properly. At the 
same time, she felt that her mind was getting dull, and she feared 
that others would perceive this and also divine the cause. She 
asked for a leave of absence, but this was not granted. She clung 
on to her work with the aid of an assistant. She was then worried 
lest she be held responsible for her assistant’s work, and felt she 
should assume entire charge, but this she felt unable to do. About 
the same time, she commenced to think that others were making 
remarks about her. They knew she was incapacitated and why. 
Finally, the whole situation became intolerable and she resigned 
_. her position with manifestations of abnormal excited anxiety. She 
was sent to a hospital for nervous disorders where her suspicions 
continued, changing only their form with the new environment. 


200 THE DRIVING FORCES OF HUMAN NATURE 


Associated with the anxiety reaction was a very marked reaction 
of ‘‘shifting responsibility.’’ She was in no way to blame for 
the whole situation. In the first place, she would have been en- 
tirely herself had they given her a short rest when it was impera- 
tively needed. Furthermore, people were drugging her and 
changing her moods from hour to hour in the day. If they would 
only let her alone she would get well. It soon became apparent 
to her that in the institution also, people were suspecting her. 
They had noticed her attractiveness. (Her attractiveness, by the 
way, was of very moderate degree.) They wondered why she 
was not married. If she did not get away they would soon know 
all. Furthermore, she felt sure that they suspected why her 
mind was dull. 

She felt that she must, at all hazards, get out of the institution. 
It was her old difficulty all over again. She had been living 
once with her brother’s family as happy as she could be anywhere 
on earth. Suspicion commenced to disturb her mind. People 
seemed to be watching her. Finally, one day someone said: ‘‘A 
nice girl like you ought to be married.’’ This upset her com- 
pletely. She felt more and more that someone had told her 
secret. Life in her brother’s house became unbearable—though 
everyone there was kindness itself, she felt that she must leave. 
So she went many miles away, where no one would know and 
none would eare. But, when away, she had no longer the stay 
of sympathy. No one really did care whether she was efficient 
or nat. She became suspicious of others and so her final break- 
down ensued. 

One day she sent for me—she wanted to tell me all her story. 
(Exhibitionism?) When I came, she said I had come too late. If 
they had only sent for me sooner, everything would have gone on 
well. But now she felt a force hindering the expression of her- 
self. (Negativism?) She had been drugged. Her mood had been 
changed. Why would not people let her alone? Then suddenly, 
she commenced her story, after being urged to let the matter drop 
for the present. 

From the story, the underlying mechanism of her delusions 
became apparent. When nineteen, she suffered an illegitimate 


THE PARATAXIS OF ANXIETY 201 


pregnancy. The event was kept a secret as far as possible. Some 
members of..the family never heard of it. From that day on 
she lived a life of fear and trembling. She was in constant dread 
of the secret leaking out into new channels. When her sus- 
picions became aroused she felt impelled to change her residence, 
which from time to time she actually did, and finally left home 
altogether, going very far away. Her difficulties were increased 
by sexual temptations. She thought that people would know that 
she was guilty when they noticed her becoming dull and ineffi- 
cient. Her sexual excitement was attributed to outside influences. 
People were experimenting on her. A patient brought into the 
next room was a hypnotist who excited her by his art. Drugs 
- were put into her food for the same reason. She was in no way 
responsible for her temptations. She was a good girl and had 
always been good. Why could not people let her alone? 

An immediate amelioration and clearing up of the delusion 
was affected by analysis, and helping her to understand that her 
false attributions were due to an unwillingness to look at herself 
as she really was. She, therefore, by an unconscious mechanism 
transferred responsibility to various influences in the outside 
' world. She was also urged to face the past, but to make no 
account of her fears that an event of sixteen years ago was caus- 
ing discussion about her at the present. She should shoulder 
the responsibility of the past and face all the possibilities of the 
present, hiding nothing from her own mind. 

The amelioration, however, was only temporary and was fol- 
lowed a few days later by an attempt at suicide. This consisted 
in merely taking a few grains of veronal; and we could not 
determine whether or not the attempt was one with real suicidal 
intent or a dramatic appeal for sympathy. The patient was 
transferred to another hospital, and has remained for some years 
without further deterioration, but harbors the fixed idea that a 
man is exerting a malign influence over her life. , Pat 

In this case, we are dealing, in the stage first depicted, with 
a parataxis that approached the stage of a psychosis. It developed 
later into what would probably be diagnosed correctly as dementia 
precox! ‘The fundamental note was the condition of anxiety, the 

14 


202 THE DRIVING FORCES OF HUMAN NATURE 


mechanism of which was apparent after a little analysis. With- 
out this analysis the anxiety seems utterly unmotived. Why 
should people suspect her? Why should they think she was 
inefficient? When we are simply told that they do, the condition 
seems very strange, but when we get an insight into the patient’s 
inner life, the type of reaction is perfectly comprehensible to us 
for we see the mental roots of her delusions. 

Scrupulosity is a form that the anxiety type of reaction 
sometimes takes. By this term, I refer particularly to the condi- 
tion in which the patient worries a great deal about whether or 
not trivial things are grievous sins, and is especially perturbed 
about the possibility of having committed grievous sexual 
offences, when, as a matter of fact, these patients have usually 
been quite free from such delinquency. They feel impelled to go 
over their sins in great detail in confession, and if they have 
committed more or less serious sexual offences in the past, they 
have an irresistible impulse to tell the whole affair all over again 
for fear that they may not have told it just right before. 

The mechanism of this condition is probably not uniform. 

The most common mechanism at the root of the scrupulosity, 
which produces a constant drive to confess and confess again, 
is probably a modification of the more or less crude impulse of 
exhibitionism. In one case of scrupulosity, the dream content 
of the individual had frequently to do with being seen more 
or less undressed, and also of confessing her sins before various 
individuals and at social gatherings. The crude impulse of 
exhibitionism had been repressed and sought outlet in the attempt 
to rehash sexual offences over and over again. This was con- 
trary, however, to ordinary modesty and reserve, and, from 
the conflict between the two sets of impulses, arose the anxiety 
as it so often does when the war between opposing trends 
becomes acute. 

In other eases of scrupulosity, I have found a history of actual 
erude exhibitionism in childhood. 

It is to be noted that the scrupulous are mostly women. I 
have known it to exist in one man of pronounced homosexual 
trend. It appeared here to have another factor. He felt impelled 


THE PARATAXIS OF ANXIETY 203 


to go over and over his confession, and felt, at the same time, 
an obligation to enter the religious life. On being told that he 
probably had no vocation to the religious life, his scrupulosity 
cleared up at once and did not return. It was, in large measure, 
a defense reaction against doing what he felt obliged to do for 
purely logical reasons, while all the instincts of animal nature 
rebelled against it. That precisely this defense reaction was 
chosen rather than another was probably due to a pronounced 
tendency to exhibitionism in a man with homosexual trends. 

When from analysis of a scrupulous individual, one finds 
evidence of a sublimated exhibitionism, and presents that finally 
to the patient, there is at first an acute exacerbation, followed 
by a distinct amelioration. The intensity of the exacerbation 
is variable. 

Anxiety Neurosis.—In the war neuroses, a condition of 
anxiety, was sometimes noticed. One must not confound it with 
mere timorousness in action. Fear and anxiety are two very dif- 
ferent emotions. The man who breaks down at the front from 
pure fear and candidly owns up to it, is not the type of mind that 
develops what has been termed the anxiety neurosis. But between 
the two types there are all degrees of transition. At one end we 
have the state of pure downright fear. The man falls out of line 
in an advance or, if he is in a trench, gets pale and shaky, and 
altogether unfit for duty, and has to be sent to the rear. When 
questioned at the triage or evacuation hospital, he says, ‘‘I simply 
eannot stand up when I hear those shells.’’ And if you ask him 
point-blank—‘‘Do you mean to say that you were afraid?’’ He 
says, ‘‘Yes.’’ The candid admission of fear at the first questioning 
is rather rare. Patients usually attribute their condition to being 
tired out. But if one suggest that a patient be given a rest, and 
sent back, some acquiesce, go back to the front, and are returned 
at once as unfit for duty. Others at once enter a demurrer, say 
they cannot stand it, are afraid of the sound of the guns. It is 
‘rather curious that so many say they are afraid of the sownd of 
the guns, and fail to mention that they are afraid that they might 
be Ait by a shell. 


204 THE DRIVING FORCES OF HUMAN NATURE 


The ease with which soldiers own up to being afraid of death 
is, aS I have said, variable. Some seem to know that they were 
cowards at the front, but are unwilling to admit it in the rear. 
It is a shameful thing for a soldier to admit, and it is, after all, 
a sign of a certain amount of wholesome self-respect when a 
man does not blurt right out, and say: ‘‘I am afraid, I can’t 
stand up under fire.’’? There are others who have started out 
with good intentions, have been through a number of engage- 
ments, and finally break down; and when they do they not only 
will not admit that they were afraid of death, but seem to be 
really unconscious of the fact that the fear of personal danger 
had anything to do with their breakdown. 

Before this breakdown they often go through a period of 
what may be termed ‘‘sensitization to danger.’’ I have examined 
a number of men who volunteered and went to their first engage- 
ment with the greatest enthusiasm, and carried on under severe 
Shell fire, doing the full duty of a soldier. But in their second 
or third or nth engagement, they break down and are fit for 
nothing ever afterwards. An actual concussion experience at 
the front is one that seems to defy all previous attempts to imagine 
it. The schoolboy’s idealistic dream of a battle is one thing. 
The battlefield itself is something very different. After long 
marches in the rain, sleeping in ‘‘pup’’ tents on wet ground, 
after sneaking into positions in the dark, and tumbling over the 
dead bodies of those who went before, after a harrowing experi- 
ence of waiting under shell fire, the schoolboy finally goes over 
the top. A shell bursts near him, kills some of his companions, 
and blows him up into the air and lands him in the mud, bruised, 
trembling and dazed. Then he gets up, and mindful of his duty 
as a soldier, goes on for several days perhaps without food, wet, 
with no place to sleep, and unable to build a fire at night to dry 
his rain-soaked clothes, and to warm his chilled body, and eold- 
blue hands and feet, for fear of attracting the shells of the enemy. 
At night there is, perhaps, quiet and time to think of the home 
he left behind, of the prospects he had for the future, of the 
dangers that lie before him, of the friends that he has seen killed 
before his eyes. Perhaps his face has been spattered with their 


THE PARATAXIS OF ANXIETY 205 


very flesh and blood. And so he passes the several days of the 
advance, but with credit to himself and to his country. His 
regiment is finally relieved. He goes back to a so-called “‘rest 
area.’’ He refuses to think that he was so unsoldierly as to waver 
at any time, and buoys himself up with a sense of duty done. He 
may go through several such advances, but there comes a time 
when in the ‘‘rest area’’ he is more fatigued than usual. He 
gets no letters from home. He becomes anxious. There must be 
something the matter with someone at home or they would write. 
If he starts to think about the next advance he puts it out of 
his mind. But he allows full play to his imagination in picturing 
home conditions. ‘‘For after all,’’ he says, ‘‘it’s a man’s duty 
_ to think about his dear ones.’’ His worry and anxiety become 
almost constant. He cannot sleep. The relative quiet of the 
‘“rest area’’ has not relieved, but increased the feeling of tension. 
His regiment gets orders to relieve another one in the front lines. 
He arrives again in a region where a few shells are falling. He 
notices that he Jumps when the shells explode much more than 
he did before. He becomes afraid that others will detect it. 
As a matter of fact, others do see that something is the matter. 
He tries his best to stand up and do his duty, but he cannot. He 
has been ‘‘sensitized’’ to shell fire and is good for nothing at 
the front. He is sent back with tremors that in typical cases 
soon disappear. But he remains more or less fatigued, worried, 
and anxious. Although he receives good news from home he is 
surprised to find that it does not relieve his mind. Perhaps some- 
thing has happened in the meantime. His anxiety, though, ap- 
pears even to himself as somewhat unreasonable. He is thor- 
oughly ashamed of himself; feels, however, utterly incapacitated, 
and frankly admits that he is now no longer in a condition to 
be of service at the front. 

Some are inclined to attribute the process of sensitization to 
actual organic lesions in the central nervous or vascular systems, 
or both, due to the effect of high explosives. If, however, we are 
to eredit the accounts given by the soldiers themselves, purely 
psychological causes may be present. Thus, patients are sensi- 
tized who never had an actual concussion experience. Mere 


206 THE DRIVING FORCES OF HUMAN NATURE 


sight of the carnage has been enough to unfit an enthusiastic vol- 


unteer for further duty. Others have been blown up by shells at. 


various times without being bothered in the least. But after 
intimate chums were shot down right before their eyes they 
found themselves unable to carry on in the next engagement. It 
is probable that sensitization consists in having it brought home 
to one very vividly and forcibly that ‘‘these bursting shells may 
do to me what I have seen them do to others, perhaps to someone 
other for whom I entertain a special affection.’’ It is strange 
that some break down so soon when others are capable of going 
through so much, and for such a long period before they finally 
become sensitive to the experiences of war. Thus, MacCurdy* 
gives a very interesting case of a man who went through over 
two years of war, rising from a private to a lieutenant, and 
finally broke down with an anxiety neurosis after a definite pre- 
lude of sensitization. In such eases it would be interesting to 
look for extraneous psychological factors so as to see whether 
or not the final breakdown was due to long-continued physical 
and mental strain, or to the complication of new mental prob- 
lems changing the patient’s general attitude. 

What seemed characteristic of the anxiety neuroses at the 
front, was the repression of the idea of being afraid, so that in 
typical cases the patient was wholly unconscious of the fact 
that he was incapacitated because of his fear of death or personal 
injury. The fear was then displaced in consciousness to some 
fictitious object. The most common object was home conditions. 
‘‘T have received no news from home, something must have 
happened, someone may be sick or dead.’’ A little reflec- 
tion, however, would show one that letters from home were not 
to be expected. In the first place, the postal service was bad, 
and long delays were common; in the second place, the soldier 
had been with a regiment always moving, and perhaps long out 
of touch with postal communication. Reference of the anxiety 
to a laudable solicitude for those at home excused the patient, 
and defended him from the shameful admission that he, a soldier, 
was afraid of death. The conflict between his fear of death and 

*War Neuroses, Utica State Hosp. Press, 1918, pp, 4-6. 


2 ee 


THE PARATAXIS OF ANXIETY 207 


his desire for military glory and the honor and respect of his 
comrades, and perhaps also his sense of duty, was the fundamen- 
tal cause of his anxiety. 

Even in these cases we see the tendency of the cause of 
anxiety to be forgotten. When this takes place, and the para- 
taxis develops into a full-blown hysteria, instances are known 
where the physical symptoms of fear are called forth by some 
incident that has an unrecognized association with the cause 
of the condition, and the patient suffers from palpitation of 
the heart, nausea, dizziness, etc. The reaction appears to be 
wholly without cause and its real significance is revealed only 
after analysis. 

Etiology of Anxiety.—The normal psychotaxis of anxiety is 
nothing but an impulse to use the ability to think over a situa- 
tion and its dangers. It may be called forth by the apprehension 
of the possibility of any painful event whatsoever. Individuals 
differ markedly in their tendency to persevere in the impulse. 
This marked difference is probably due to hereditary factors, 
so that anxiety is not a wholly psychogenic mechanism. There is, 
however, a psychogenic factor that enters into pathological states 
of anxiety, and that is an apparently irreconcilable conflict be- 
tween incompatible desires. The soldier, for instance, cannot 
be sure of saving his life if he risks it. If he tries to save it he 
runs into the danger of being called a coward. It was this con- 
flict that lay at the basis of the anxiety neuroses of the war. 
These neuroses differed from the other war neuroses in that the 
patients from one point of view desired, and from another point 
of view did not desire both horns of their dilemma. They wanted 
to make good, but they did not want to be killed. They wanted 
to escape danger, but they did not want to be called cowards. 
Other patients, who had no very strong desire to make good, 
and were bent mainly on shrinking from danger, responded to 
the same situation by some kind of defense reaction that dis- 
abled them and withdrew them from the zone of operations. 

A similar conflict exists in those whose conflict proceeds from 
difficulties of the moral life. They want to keep the moral law, 
and maintain an appearance of respectability in the eyes of 


208 THE DRIVING FORCES OF HUMAN NATURE 


others, and also in the forum of their own conscience; and at 
the same time they feel a craving for pleasures that are prohibited 
by the moral law. This craving is suppressed with more or less 
success. If unsuccessful, so that the craving is at times indulged, 
the anxiety remains associated with the desire that causes it. 
If successfully, so that the craving is never indulged, and the 
patient does not even admit to himself that he has it, the anxiety 
is likely to attach itself to other things in which the patient 
does not seruple to admit his interest. Thus, in the war neuroses, 
the men worried about what might have happened at home. An 
officer in the engineering corps became obsessed with the fear 
that he might have left his instruments behind. Others worried 
lest they might have made some mistake. 

The fears and anxieties resulting from such conditions are 
sometimes termed ‘‘phobias’’ and are often the symbolic expres- 
sion of the suppressed desire. This is conditioned by the fact that 
one and the same thing from different points of view is both 
desired and not desired. A school-teacher came to me with a 
phobia that was gradually becoming more and more extensive. 
The basis of it was an infantile sexual curiosity. It commenced 
with the fear of a certain street through which she could not 
pass and, therefore, she had to take a long, circuitous route to 
school. Free associations revealed the fact, not only of early 
curiosity, but also that on this street the school-children were 
in the habit of writing obscene words and drawing obscene pic- 
tures on the walls. The anxiety about this street arose from 
the fact that she wanted to look at the walls but felt that she had 
to keep her eyes on the ground. Each time that she went through 
it, it renewed the whole conflict that was going on in her mind, 
so that it became a painful, fatiguing journey. If she looked 
up she was afraid that people would think that she was curious 
about the walls and then they would know all about her conflict. 
The necessity of restraining her eyes then extended to all sorts 
of public gatherings, to all streets that were crowded, to the 
classroom itself, so that teaching became an intolerable burden. 
The phobia became associated with a ‘‘compulsion neurosis’’— 


THE PARATAXIS OF ANXIETY 209 


a tendency to look which had to be continually suppressed when 
in public.’ 

The conflict of incompatible desires,-neither-one-of which will 
-be-downed, is the main factor in producing a state of anxiety. 
Exceptions will be found to the narrow Freudian concept, that 
anxiety neuroses arise only in cases in which sexual gratification 
is desired but not possible. The tension arising from the impos- 
sibility is a factor, but not the real cause. The anxiety arises from 
the natural tendency to consider possibilities in all sorts of diffi- 
cult situations. When one is in a dilemma, and wants each side 
at the same time, and likewise fears lest he be impaled on either 
horn, the condition of worry is perpetuated. Repression leads to 
all sorts of symbolic expression and apparently unmotived out- 
breaks of the physical symptoms of anxiety and fear. | | 

Treatment of Anxiety.—As a rule, the anxious person should 
be made to understand fully the cause of his anxiety. Realiz- 
ing the true reason for his condition is frequently sufficient 
to bring it to an end in cases that are not of long standing, 
The treatment of the anxiety neuroses at the front consisted 
in nothing more than this—plus, of course, the short period of 
rest during which it was accomplished, The reason why mere 
knowledge of the subconscious motivation of behavior brings 
about its modification, may be shown by the following analogy. 
A man can play upon your mind, arouse your sympathies, and 
excite your resentment by presenting to you a number of plausi- 
ble arguments, which he, by a knowledge of your character, knows 
will appeal to you. It is necessary for you to think all along 
that he is honestly striving for the ends he proposes to you. But 
if once you discover that he has been playing upon your emo- 
tivity for sinister ends of his own, about which he told you noth- 
ing, his power of influence dwindles into nothing. Our ‘‘lower 
self’’ is very fertile with these specious reasons. Attempt to 

7 Analysis helped this case, I think, but did not cure. It made work 
possible. It did not do away with the conflict. I was not successful in 
opening channels of compensation or sublimation that afforded adequate 


satisfaction. The opening of these channels and not analysis alone is the 
secret of success in curing such cases. 


210 THE DRIVING FORCES OF HUMAN NATURE 


do anything good, but costing unpleasant exertion or repression, 
and at once the mind is ready with all manner of excuses. When 
the anxious person tends to the side of his dilemma that involves 
the exclusion of natural cravings, he meets with a storm of 
internal opposition. ‘To- understand fully the source of this ° 
opposition helps him for it enables him more easily to enter into 
paths of compensation or sublimation. 

The fundamental cure consists, however, in the solution of 
the dilemma. One side must be taken and the other really and 
genuinely given up, or it must be satisfied in a manner that does 
not conflict with the demands of the other side.” Thus, in a case 
reported by Frink,’ a girl was cured of an anxiety about going 
out alone by analysis. The analysis made it possible for her 
to resume her friendship with a man she loved, and marry him. 
The opening up of this happy solution to her difficulties and its 
actual accomplishment was the real reason for her cure. It would 
have helped her but little to merely understand herself, if no 
solution to the problem of her future life had been offered. 

Some doctors do not scruple at an attempt to bring the 
conflict to an end by sacrificing the moral law. Even Freud 
has entered a demurrer against such attempts by describing 
them as wilde Psychoanalyse. Whatever one may think about 
the moral law, he should regard it as embodying the sanctions 
of experience. It cannot be infringed upon with impunity. 
The Gordian knot of the psychosis is not to be eut, but un- 
raveled. The patient needs not the skill of the physician for 
any such solution. Some patients with false consciences may 
be very much helped by finding out from a trustworthy moral 
guide that what troubles them so much is not a delinquency. 
But duty and moral obligations cannot be sacrificed in order to 
overcome anxiety, however great. The task of psychology is 
the finding of a real solution which will do away with the 
anxiety, and, at the same time, not deprive the patient of the 
safeguards of the moral law. 


® Morbid Fears and Compulsions, 1918, pp. 444-495. 





CHAPTER VII 
PARATAXES OF DEFENSE 


The Concept of the Defense Reactions.— Whenever it is pos- 
sible for us to avoid or escape an unpleasant situation, we experl- 
ence a strong tendency to do so. It makes no difference whether 
the difficulty be little or great, there is a natural tendency to 
avoid it. In some, this tendency may be obscured by ideals of 
conduct, but from birth it exists in all, and no one entirely over- 
comes it. The difficulty may come to us from without—from our 
relations to the external world, or it may come to us from within 
—from painful memories or unpleasant considerations. In the 
former case, we avoid persons or things, or shrink from situations 
that are unbearable. In the latter, we put disturbing memories 
or concepts out of our mind, and turn to other things. In both 
cases we may be said to defend ourselves against the experience 
of some unpleasantness. 

This reaction has many modes, so that the psychotaxis of 
defense is a unit, not because of the means used in avoiding un- 
pleasant conditions, but because of the unity of the cause that 
ealls it forth—the unpleasantness of a disagreeable situation. 

The defense reaction does not wait for mental considerations 
and voluntary initiation, though it may be intensified and sus- 
tained by the will. It is a prompt, natural, involuntary response 
to any unpleasant event whatsoever. There is an instinctive ten- 
dency, for example, to keep others from talking about anything 
in our life which we look upon as shameful or disgraceful. And, 
furthermore, we do not like to think about such incidents our- 
selves. Some may be inclined to deny this, but, if they examine 
themselves well enough, they will find not only events of their 
past life about which they do not desire any general conversation, 
‘but some events—especially those involving wounded pride— 
which they do not think about very often; and if they do, they are 
at once glossed over with excuses. 

211 


212 THE DRIVING FORCES OF HUMAN NATURE 


The Defense Reactions in Everyday Life.—There are a num- 
ber of little ruses in everyday life whose true nature is seldom 
penetrated by the non-psychological observer. Go to a man and 
lay a plan before him. He praises it highly, and says, it’s a 
‘“bully’’ scheme. Then he gets serious, says it’s a very impor- 
tant matter, and suggests that you and he have a meeting with X 
and talk the thing over. If you are a psychologist, you are at once 
suspicious that there is some reason why your friend does not 
want to take part in your ‘‘bully’’ scheme. When the meeting 
takes place, and difficulties commence to multiply, then you know 
that the consultation is a defense reaction to keep your friend 
from saying yes when he has not the heart to say no. 

Try to help an old man to put on his coat, or get out of a 
carriage, or into a car, and he impatiently pushes you aside. To 
accept your polite offer would mean an acknowledgment of its 
usefulness. This would bring home to him the fact that he is 
growing old, an unpleasant fact to face—and so, immediately the 
mechanism of his defense reaction is set going and he tells you, 
somewhat testily, that he is perfectly able to get along by himself. 

Enter into the inner life of many a wit and you will find ele- 
ments of sadness and trends of discontent. Wittiness is often a 
defense reaction against one’s own unhappiness. 

Let a toper resolve to quit drinking, and he will very soon 
think it necessary to take a little wine for his stomach’s sake— 
in fact, he will realize that his whole physical constitution was, 
still is, and always will be such that a little alcohol is essential to 
his metabolic needs. Such ideas are defense reactions against 
the carrying out of his good resolutions. 

Suppose a man makes up his mind to do an unjust act—one 
that involves some injury or hardship to his neighbor. He will 
soon commence to think that Jones, after all, deserves to be 
punished and corrected, and he is only meting out to Jones his 
just deserts. For every wrong that one may conceive of doing, 
there is always an excuse, which, though it does not exonerate, 
will at least diminish guilt. Excuses are defense reactions that 
ward off the unpleasant sense of personal cuilt. 


PARATAXES OF DEFENSE 213 


Men not only want to think well of themselves, but also to 
have all the.world esteem them highly. If, therefore, they have 
motives or desires that the crowd condemns, they defend them- 
selves against common opprobium by disguising the inner working 
of their minds. A common way of doing this is to manifest hor- 
ror or disgust at the recital of the delinquencies of others by what 
might be termed an old-maid shock reaction. A certain amount 
of regret at the unfortunate actions of others is natural, and its 
manifestation has no especial significance. When, however, any- 
one betrays extraordinary disgust and expresses himself in very 
strong terms about the matter, his shock reaction is a ‘‘complex- 
indiecator.’’ He himself has had a great deal of trouble with the 
_very matter he condemns. His manifest disturbance and horror 
about the affair is a defense reaction which keeps anyone from 
suspecting that one who is so violently shocked would ever have 
dreamed of such delinquencies, and tends, in fact, to lead others 
to think that they are peculiarly foreign to his nature. 

These examples are illustrations of minor defense reactions 
in everyday life. Let us now consider the various types of this 
psychotaxis. In so doing we shall treat also the parataxie forms 
—the order of treatment being that of psychological similarity 
rather than pathological intensity. 


TypicAL DEFENSE Reactions. A. THose PROCEEDING FROM 
INTERNAL DIFFICULTIES 


1. Forgetting.—Forgetting is said to be a defense reaction. 
Freud propounded this theory in his psychopathology of every- 
day life, maintaining that if we forget a proper name there must 
be someone among our acquaintance, bearing this name or one 
similar to it, whom we dislike very much. So our inability to 
remember proper names in general, according to Freud, is due 
to their association with things that we do not like to remember. 

So far there has been no adequate experimental investigation 
of this important psychological theory. 

Peters published in Kraepelin’s Psychologische Arbeiten,' in 
1911, a study entitled: ‘‘Gefthl und Errinerung. Beitrige zur 


214 THE DRIVING FORCES OF HUMAN NATURE 


Errinerungsanalyse.’’ In his experiments a word was spoken 


to a subject—such as yesterday, blame, might, silk, give, ugly, 


soldier, ete. The subject’s task was to think as quickly as possi- 
ble, without choice, upon some event of his past life, and as soon 
as he had done so, to say yes. The interval between giving the 
word and the subject’s response was measured by a stop-watch. 
He was then asked: (1) Had the event when experienced a tone 
of feeling? If so, of what kind? (2) At the moment of its remi- 
niscence had it a feeling tone? If so, of what kind? (3 How long 
ago did it happen? (4) How often was the same event experi- 
enced? (5) How often has this event been remembered? In 879 
events thus remembered, 80 per cent., when experienced, had a 
tone of feeling; 16 per cent. were indifferent; 4 per cent. ques- 
tionable. Of the events with feeling tones, 65 per cent. were 
pleasant, 30 per cent. unpleasant and 5 per cent. mixed. 

E. N. Henderson, in 1911, took up the same problem.? Ten 
subjects were asked to give incidents remembered from his or 
her daily life—the earliest that could be recalled just as they 
arose, without selection. One hundred such memories were ob- 
tained from each subject. The memories were then classified, and 
it was found that 55.1 per cent. were agreeable, 11.8 per cent. in- 
different, 33.1 per cent. disagreeable. The author argued that 
because pleasant experiences are much more numerous than un- 
pleasant, therefore, we ‘‘remember a larger proportion of our 
disagreeable experiences than we do of our agreeable ones.’”® 

In 1912, Karl Birnbaum published his study, Ueber den 
Einfluss von Gefihlsfaktoren auf die Assoziationen.* He chose 
what he regarded as: (1) Words which have a tone of feeling,such 
as death, health, riches; (2) indifferent words, such as hand, hat, 
house; (3) words which he supposed would have a personal feeling 
for the subject. Orderlies, supposed to be normal, showed no dif- 
ference in their reaction time to pleasantly and indifferently toned 

2“ Do We Forget the Disagreeable?” Journal of Philos. Psychol. and 
Scientific Methods, VIII, pp. 432-437. 

*L.c., p. 436. 


*Monatsheft fiir Psychiatrie und Neurologie, XXXII, pp. 95-123, 
194-220. 


hes 


a Seng en 


= ee 


a 


PARATAXES OF DEFENSE 215 


words. Hysterical subjects showed no pronounced difference— 
but whatever difference there was indicated that unpleasantly 
toned words had a longer reaction time. Depressed patients also 
showed no pronounced difference in their reaction time. 

In 1918, William D. Tait found’ that words referring to pleas- 
ant things are remembered better than those referring to unpleas- 
ant things, but that indifferent words are not so well remembered 
as either pleasant or unpleasant words. His results, however, are 
clouded by the fact that he neglected to take into consideration 
the effects of retroactive inhibition. 

None of these experiments really decides the question whether 
or not the association of a word with an event we do not wish to 

think about makes the word more difficult to reeall.6 For not 
all unpleasantness tends to make us want to forget. Hardships 
are remembered with pride. Again, no one can, by inspection 
alone, pick out indifferent words from those that are emotionally 
toned. What is indifferent to one subject leads to the liveliest 
associations with another. 

In default, then, of experimental evidence, we can admit, as 
yet, only a certain amount of probability that there is in our 
psyche, not only a natural tendency to put out of our minds 
certain occurrences that we think about with reluctance, but also 
words that are associated with such unpleasant events. Certainly 
all forgetting is not of this type. The mere fading of sense im- 
pressions goes on at a definite rate. It is a logarithmic function 
of the time. This fading is independent of emotionally toned asso- 
ciation. Is there over and above this another law of memory, in 
virtue of which we tend to forget all the associations of anything 
we hate or despise? This question cannot, as yet, be given a 
positive answer. 

Besides the forgetting of words, amnesia for incidents and 
periods has been attributed to the desire to forget them. Long- 
forgotten incidents in childhood are brought out by association 

*“< The Effect of Psychophysical Attitudes on Memory,” The Journal of 
Abnormal Psychology, 1913-14, VIII, pp. 10-37. 


6A work in my own laboratory, as yet unfinished, tends so far to 
confirm the Freudian theory. 


216 THE DRIVING FORCES OF HUMAN NATURE 


and looked upon as the cause of neurotic symptoms which dis- 
appear when their relation to the repressed memory is demon- 
strated. It happens very often that the demonstration of the 
connection between the symptoms and some repressed incident 
does not cure a psychosis. In such cases, psychoanalysts main- 
tain that the analysis has not been pushed far enough to get at 
the deepest roots of the patient’s difficulty. Writing from my own 
experience alone, I can only say that I have not as yet unearthed 
an event in any patient which was so completely buried that it 
was clearly impossible for the patient to recall it, under any cir- 
eumstances whatsoever, without the aid of analysis. This is not 
in any sense a denial that such cases may exist. I have, however, 
several times seen cases in which it seemed to me that neurotic 
symptoms were due to their association with unpleasant mem- 
ories while the patient himself saw no such connection. 

It is said that a patient may forget a whole period as a defense 
reaction against his responsibility for acts committed during 
that period. Thus, a young man got married against his mother’s 
will, ran away from home, got into trouble with his wife, and 
developed a twilight hysterical state from which he recovered 
with complete amnesia for everything that happened from the 
time he left home to his recovery. He developed, moreover, a 
complete loss of recognition of the woman he married. The tele- 
ological value of such an amnesia is evident. It defended him 
against the admission of responsibility for what he did, and 
enabled him to go home, and to be petted and nursed as a poor, 
unfortunate, sick boy. 

The petit mal attacks of epilepsy often resemble such cases 
when their twilight state is sufficiently prolonged. Again, the 
forgetting is simply an element, one symptom in a complex which 
aims not directly at forgetting, but rather at disabling. The 
amnesia following concussion experiences in the war was often 
psychogenic. The reason for thinking so is the frequency with 
which many amnesias cleared up by suggestive treatment, such 
aS faradie stimulation. 

Patients who for days had had no recollection of any event 
in their past life, but went about in a dazed condition, would in 


PARATAXES OF DEFENSE Q17 


a few minutes have their memory completely restored by the 
suggestive effect of an electric battery. The motivation back of 
these amnesias was not a desire to forget, but to produce a condi- 
tion that would necessitate the patient’s return to the rear. 

2. Excitement.—The constant, ceaseless activity of many indi- 
viduals is a defense reaction against sorrows that have deprived 
them of the zest of living. Heroes and heroines in novels often 
plunge into seas of excitement, etc. In thus picturing their char- 
acters, novelists have but given expression to tendencies which 
they have observed in themselves or in others. Is it possible to 
conceive of the excited phase of manic-depressive insanity in this 
light? Does the depressed patient, after long nursing his sorrow, 
finally attempt to drown it by ceaseless and unending activity? 
I know of no evidence to show that this is the case other than the 
fact that the excitement.of some normal individuals has its roots 
in a desire to forget. It may, therefore, be possible that some 
abnormal manic conditions are nothing more than accentuations 
of the psychotaxis of defense. 

3. Transfer of Blame.—We are familiar with this psycho- 
taxis in everyday hfe. Whenever two or more individuals are 
engaged in a task that fails or falls short of expectations, it is 
very rare that one of the individuals steps forward and shoulders 
the responsibility. If the undertaking succeeds all are usually 
ready to claim a lion’s share in its accomplishment, but if it fails 
who is there to say: ‘‘It’s my fault, blame me’’? What is true 
of single tasks is true also of the failures of a lifetime. Men look 
back upon their life and attribute their downfall to the malign 
influence of enemies, to their unfortunate lack of opportunity, 
to their unhappy home conditions, to downright bad luck at eriti- 
cal moments, to everything that they can think of, except their 
mismanagement of their own personal affairs. If the saddest of 
all sad words of tongue or pen are these sad words: ‘‘It might 
have been,’’ doubly sad are these words: ‘‘It might have been, if 
I had only acted as I could and should have done.’’ If aman has 
enemies who attempt to bring about his downfall, it is often his 
own fault that he has made them. If a man fails through lack of 
opportunity, it is often due to the fact that he has not made him- 

15 


218 THE DRIVING FORCES OF HUMAN NATURE 


self the type of man in his trade or profession to be sought out, 
that opportunities may be offered him. If a man has bad luck 
at a critical moment, he is often responsible for bringing about 
the crisis, and his ‘‘bad luck’’ is sometimes a euphemism for his 
own poor judgment. If an unhappy home has been a drain upon 
his energies, he himself has often been the dominant factor in 
makine his home unhappy. To realize all this fully, would be 
a deep affliction to any human being. Hence the mind tends to 
defend itself against any such painful experience and spontane- 
ously transfers the blame to someone else. 

So natural is this tendency, that even in little and trifling 
matters we blame, with delicious spontaneity, inanimate things for 
our own negligence. Thus, we kick the stone on which we stumble, 
whereas we ourselves should have looked out to see where we 
were walking. We curse the fountain pen that dries up, whereas 
we ourselves should have taken care to have it filled. We blame the 
razor that pulls, whereas it is our own business to keep it honed 
and stropped. We damn the fire that will not burn, when we our- 
selves laid it so it cannot burn, ete. There is no impulse among 
the psychotaxes that seem so natural to the human mind as this 
spontaneous transfer of blame. : 

Closely associated with it are suspicions and ideas of persecu- 
tion. It is seldom that a successful man takes an attitude of sus- 
picion towards others. It frequently happens, however, that 
when misfortune impends, or is already present, one commences 
to search for reasons—looking always without and never within 
—and so his attention is attracted to the peculiar actions of others. 
At first he suspects, finally he blames, and commences to think 
that he is persecuted. 

Even minds that have suffered no organic toxie deterioration 
are capable, not merely of vague and groundless mistaken judg- 
ments about the actions and intentions of others, but also intricate 
suspicions and delusions of persecution. When, however, the 
critique of one’s own opinions suffers some impairment from toxic 
cerebral conditions when the patient is painfully aware of the 
ruin of his life, he reacts to that unhappy situation by transfer- 
ring the blame to others in the most bizarre and impossible fash- 


oy 


PARATAXES OF DEFENSE 219 


ion. Hence, when patients have sensory hallucinations, they do 
not attribute it to the disordered action of their own mind. To 
admit that their mind might possibly be deranged would be to 
court the very spectre that they fear. Therefore, another explana- 
tion is sought, and when the critique of judgment is gone, no in- 
terpretation is too impossible to be grasped at as an escape from 
the awful realization of actually present insanity. Consequently, 
if they feel a tingling in the skin, someone is giving them electric 
shocks. This someone is often an individual whom they dislike 
or of whom they were Jealous before their mental derangement. If 
they have auditory hallucinations they feel that the vile words 
could not possibly come from their pure minds, and so attribute 
them to beings that are persecuting them, men or devils as the 
case may be. So, also, hallucinatory flashes of light are attributed 
to the malign influence of enemies who are throwing searchlights 
on the wall and into the room where they sleep, ete. 


B. DEFENSE REACTIONS RESULTING FROM EXTERNAL 
CIRCUMSTANCES 


1. Negativism; Description.—Negativism is a term intro- 
duced by the German psychiatrist, Kahlbaum, to designate a com- 
mon psychopathic condition in which the patients shut themselves 
out from the influence of all external impressions, become wholly 
unapproachable towards personal communications, resist any 
order, persuasion or suggestion, and often do precisely the oppo- 
site of what is requested. Such patients will often maintain pecu- 
liar attitudes all day long, apparently oblivious to everything that 
is going on about them. Questioning them after they have come 
out of the condition shows that they have all along taken in most 
of what was happening. They have learned the names of doctors 
and patients whom they never met before they came to the ward, 
and have picked up a great deal of information from the gossip 
of the patients. If a negativistic person is standing, and you ask 
him to sit, he holds himself as stiff as a poker. If he is sitting 
and you ask him to stand, he clutches the chair in apparent 
defiance. Frequently they remain silent for days (mutism). 


220 THE DRIVING FORCES OF HUMAN NATURE 


Often they refuse food. Sometimes they will not eat their own 
dinner but will steal that of a fellow-patient. 

Roots in Normal Life.—It would be a mistake to regard this 
reaction as the product entirely of psychopathic conditions. Care- 
ful observation of normal individuals, especially children, will 
reveal its embryonic stages. Children are negativistic toward 
one whom they dislike; when they are angry, towards everybody. 
If a man whom a child dislikes tells him to sit down the youngster 
is very likely to respond by standing erect and saying, ‘‘I won’t.’’ 
In fact, children dislike being ordered about by anyone, and 
purely from this distaste, have a tendency to do just the opposite 
of what is commanded. Nor do adults entirely grow out of this 
childish impulse. Nobody likes to be ordered about. It lowers 
self-estimation to be under anyone’s thumb; but to show our 
independence, letting the would-be-tyrant see that he has no 
authority, going against his orders and doing just the opposite, 
gives one a Satisfying sense of self-sufficiency, and perhaps even 
a feeling of superiority. 

The Shut-in Type of Reaction.—Negativism as a normal psy- 
chotaxis never extends its ban beyond certain individuals, except 
for periods of anger and pouting, which pass away in a few hours 
or a few days at the most. Whenever the individual is nega- 
tivisitic towards the whole world for long periods, the condition 
has passed from the psychotaxis to the parataxis, and is no longer 
normal. We may speak of a character manifesting this kind of 
parataxis as a shut-in reaction type. It is a common reaction in 
boys when they leave home and go to school. From an environ- 
ment where they had pretty much everything their own way, 
some boys pass to the boarding-school where very little goes ac- 
cording to their liking. Instead of yielding to their whims, the 
new companions fight. Bigger boys bully them, small boys tease 
them, so that the youngster, who has been fondly coddled and 
cockered at home by unwisely indulgent parents, has to learn 
his first lessons in self-restraint from those who administer it 
without mercy. Some shrink back from these harsh surroundings 
and become the quiet, lonely, friendless, much teased, and little 
respected boys that are familiar sights in most large institutions. 


PARATAXES OF DEFENSE 221 


Francis Thompson attributed this reaction type to Shelley. In 
his description of Shelley, he merely expressed his own experi- 
ence, and defined for us perfectly the precox reaction of the child. 

‘*So beset, the child fled into the tower of his own soul, and 
raised the drawbridge. He threw out a reserve encysted in which 
he grew to maturity unaffected by intercourses that modify the 
maturity of others into the thing we call a man.’” 

Case History.—Some eases of this parataxis of recoil very 
closely resemble dementia precox, but they clear up too quickly 
for us to think that we have really been dealing with the deteriora- 
tion implied by a dementia. The following case, except for its 
prompt recovery, would probably have been diagnosed as demen- 
tia precox. 

Patient was a soldier, private in A. E. F., white, age twenty- 
six. In 1910 he had a mental breakdown in which he fell 
into a kind of dreamy shut-in state, much more profound than 

the present. This he attributed to a wild life with prostitutes 
and private sexual excesses. His personal history was other- 
wise negative. 

He was drafted, and arrived in France in August, and got 
to the front in September. He saw service in a signal service 
platoon. He was at first frightened at the sound of the big guns, 
but soon got used to them. He went to the Toul sector and was 
in the drive of the last three days of the war, helping to string 
wires. He did his duty during the period of the activities. His 
trouble did not commence until his regiment started to withdraw 
after the armistice. The first thing he noticed was that he worried 
about his friends among the boys who were at the front. He 
wondered how they came out. Then he was troubled with insom- 
nia. He then noticed he was getting run down. He was slow 
about putting his pack together. He was slow to think. He felt 
sad about the war—about the friends he had lost among the boys 
whom he knew who had been badly wounded—and the many more 
whom he did not know. Finally, on his way to Chaumont he broke 
down entirely. He simply could not get his pack together. He 
was not conscious of wanting to evade his duty, but he was think- 

* Hssay on Shelley, London, 1909, pp. 33-34. 


922 THE DRIVING FORCES OF HUMAN NATURE 


ing about home and his present unhappy lot. He was sent to a 
base hospital where he was reported to have many trends sug- 
gesting a precox personality, as reticence, lack of frankness, 
and seclusiveness. 

When I saw him in another hospital, the precox symptoms 
were more pronounced. He did not speak unless someone ad- 
dressed him. He often soiled the bed. He kept his eyes closed 
a great deal of the time though he was not sleeping. When his 
eyes were not closed, they were wide open, staring into space. 
Sometimes he stood for a long while in peculiar katatonie atti- 
tudes, apparently asleep. If you tapped him on the shoulder, he 
startled like one awakening from sleep, and on attempting to 
engage him in conversation, he stared at you in a peculiar man- 
ner, smiled in a sickly fashion, started a sentence, and without 
finishing it lapsed into a dreamy silence. 

Repeated efforts to get him to talk were more and more suc- 
eessful. Finally, he told something of the content of his mind 
while dreaming in his awkward position. He rambled on about 
how there is a duplicate of every man, and that there is to be a 
wonderful new world. Everything is cheerful. There is a great 
Christian army. They will help everyone. God leads it. Then 
he complained of the swearing that he had to listen to all around 
him. Again he talked about the navy, then of his girl, and of her 
wonderful part in the army, and how all the nurses and all the 
telephone operators had a great work to do in running the 
switchboards. | 

I then merely suggested to him that he was like a man asleep 
and had mixed up the United States Army with the work he hoped 
to do for social betterment after he returned to America. His 
eyes stared a little and he seemed to have an inkling that what 
I said might be true. On the theory that I was dealing with a 
parataxis of recoil, a shrinking into dream-life to get away from 
unpleasant surroundings, I tried to bring him into contact with 
reality by taking him to the shop and getting him interested in a 
little carpentry. Every few days I had a talk with him about 
the army and tried to disentangle the A. E. F. from his schemes 
for social betterment. There was a marked improvement in a 


PARATAXES OF DEFENSE 223 


short while. It was interesting to watch the gradual, but steady 
clearing up of the peculiar staring expression. I asked him one 
day what he meant by the duplicate of every man. ‘‘ Well,’’ said 
he, ‘‘you know that when a person has a battle with himself 
there are two sides—apparently two different persons.’’ I had 
no time to analyze his condition, nor was it necessary. In less 
than two weeks he had entirely cleared up with complete insight, 
and rational plans for the future. 

I regarded the case as a parataxis of recoil, and not a depres- 
sion (his attitude, manner, mood, conversation differed from that 
of manic-depressive patients) and not adementia. I then argued 
that an attempt to draw him back to the real world should be suc- 
- cessful. The therapeutic test lent confirmation to the theory. 
Whether the theory was correct or not, the case shows us a young 
man, no longer buoyed up by the excitement of war, worn out 
with marches, painfully conscious of his uncouth surroundings— 
the mud and the rain and the cursing of his companions—suffer- 
ing also from a moral conflict within, finally breaking down, 
shutting the world out and entering into a dream-life by him- 
self. Whatever deeper factors may have been present, the case 
illustrates fairly well the parataxis of recoil, and shows that such 
conditions may be cured without deep analysis, by merely attempt- 
ing to draw the patient out of his dream-life with himself back 
once more to the world of things... 

2. Voluntary and Involuntary Incapacitation.—The sim- 
plest form of defense against an unpleasant situation is with- 
drawal by incapacitation. Incapacitation may be consciously 
or unconsciously caused. There are two extreme forms of con- 
scious and voluntary incapacitation. The first form is pure, 
downright malingering, that is, conscious pretense and imita- 
tion of disabilities that the patient knows he does not possess. 
The other is to inflict a wound on oneself voluntarily, in order 
to escape from duty. In the recent war, cases of the latter were 
more frequently detected than those of the former. The reason 
for this is that malingering seldom fabricates a condition that 
has no semblance of reality. It takes minor disabilities and pre- 
tends that they are greater than they really are. The exaggera- 


224 THE DRIVING FORCES OF HUMAN NATURE 


tion of symptoms is sometimes, but not always, a voluntary and 
conscious act, because our own fears picture to us possibilities 
that have only a shadowy foundation. In many minds, the tran- 
sition from fear that they may have a disabling symptom to 
belief that they do have it, is an easy one—especially if some 
advantage is to be reaped from the loss of function. It would 
seem, too, independent of any advantage to be reaped, that the 
suggestion ‘‘I am disabled’’ is planted by organic injuries and 
outlasts the anatomical and physiological disability. Thus, with 
all organic injuries, there is also a mental or functional aceretion 
which makes the injury seem worse than it really is. What leads 
us to this conclusion is the fact that the disabilities which have 
their origin in organic injury ean often be suddenly improved 
so much that they are practically cured, there being left behind 
only traces of the original condition. Were we studying disabili- 
ties from the medical rather than the psychological point of view, 
it might be well to introduce a few examples here from the rich 
material that the psychotherapy, developed at the front, has 
placed at our disposal. Here, however, we are interested in the 
psychotaxes and parataxes as elements in our mental life, and not 
in their medical aspects. The field of their manifestation is in 
the interesting group of cases that shade off from malingering 
over into neurasthenia and hysteria, and it is here that we may 
study them to the best advantage. There is no sharp dividing 
line between voluntary deception or malingering, and the uncon- 
scious manufacture of hysterical disabilities—any more than there 
is between the conscious and the unconscious. 

The Reaction of Incapacitation in Childhood.—Children are 
so often incapacitated by the exaggeration of their minor ailments 
that we may regard most forms of this impulsive tendency in 
childhood as psychotaxic rather than parataxic in nature. 
Children quickly recover from hysterical ailments when they are 
made to realize that the disability is a far greater burden to them 
than an advantage, or, at least, that it does not obtain for them 
the calculated immunity, or much desired indulgence. Parents 
who do not understand this frequently have their children domi- 
nating the household. One of the more common forms of disability 


PARATAXES OF DEFENSE 225 


in childhood is a functional chorea or rather choreiform move- 
ments.2 Functional choreas sometimes clear up promptly on 
asafeetida, a drug that has no physiological action, but which to 
most children is so unpleasant to take that it is far more advan- 
tageous to get well than to continue the treatment. I have seen 
cases in which arsenic had no effect, clear up promptly on asa- 
foetida. Now arsenic is not unpleasant to take, and is supposed 
to have an obscure, as yet unexplained, physiological action in 
curing chorea. It would look as if the unpleasantness, rather 
than the physiological action of the drug, was effective in cer- 
tain cases. 

Another form of disablement in children is the convulsive 
- seizure. One boy that I examined had a convulsive seizure the 
second day he had to go to school, just as he was going out of the 
front gate. His mother ran out to him, picked him up, nursed him, 
fondled and petted him, and fed him daintly for several days 
thereafter. The consequence was that every time he was sent to 
school thereafter he had another convulsive seizure with a repe- 
tition of the coddling treatment. In this way he managed to avoid 
school altogether, and at seventeen could not read or write. 

Another form is the tantrum—crying, shrieking, falling on the 
floor, kicking, biting, and carrying on generally in such a dis- 
reputable manner that the parents are put to shame, and the 
neighbors often think that the child is being very badly treated. 
Thus, it gets and enjoys a great deal of undeserved sympathy 
—the craving for which is so keen with most children. 

There is no doubt that these reactions occur more easily in 
some children than in others, so that there is a constitutional faec- 
tor always present. As a rule, it is insufficient to produce the 
condition. One child, who had the wildest tantrums I have ever 
seen, followed by foaming at the mouth and exhaustion so as to 
make one consider the possibility of an epileptic seizure, when 
taken away from home and administered one good whipping, 
changed his character completely, and became a gentle, well- 
‘mannered, and lovable child. Mismanagement at home, consisting 


*This statement must not be taken as signifying that all chorea 
is functional. 


226 THE DRIVING FORCES OF HUMAN NATURE 


in unwillingness to administer correction when it is indicated, 
and a false tenderness which delights in satisfying the child’s 
every desire, is usually the prime factor in developing these 
parataxes of defense by which the child attempts to escape the 
unpleasant situations that arise in the course of its education 
and training. 

It is from such children as these, in my opinion, that are 
recruited the ranks of the adult pretenders—whether they are 
downright malingerers, or are shirking their duties and responsi- 
bilities by the more circuitous route of a psychoneurosis. 

There are two general forms which this defense reaction takes 
in the adult: (a) That of general disability, or (b) that of one 
or more special disabilities, or hysteria. 

A. The Parataxis of General Disability —When a man’s work 
is humdrum and uninteresting, when there are elements of funda- 
mental discontent in his life, so that he has nothing to make it 
seem worthwhile, it is very likely to become so burdensome to 
him that he feels himself incapacitated, and so breaks down and 
gives up. When in this condition a little exertion fatigues him; 
he is angered on the slightest provocation; he feels himself un- 
justly treated if his will is crossed in anything; he complains, 
grumbles, criticizes, becomes sour, cynical, discontented. At the 
front this condition was at times a disabling mechanism that kept 
men from doing their duty. It was the war neurosis which caused 
the most concern to the conscientious physicians. It is so difficult 
to exclude obscure, organic conditions as a cause of weakness and 
disability that one hesitates to label a case neurasthenia. 

One of my cases, a lieutenant in the army, presented symp- 
toms of fatigue that might easily have been due to overwork. 
He professed a desire to get back to work, which proved, how- 
ever, not to be genuine. Physical examination was negative. He 
had at first only two subjective complaints, one that he was tired 
—the other that the little finger of his left hand became numb 
after people commenced to tell him that he looked tired. Rest 
only made him worse and more discontented. He constantly sug- 
gested that he should be sent to the Riviera—so constantly that I 
strongly suspected that his neurasthenia was only a disabling 


PARATAXES OF DEFENSE 227 


mechanism to get out of hard work, and have a pleasant vacation 
at Nice. 

It was interesting to watch the rapid restoration to health 
of this lieutenant and a number of grumbling, discontented, neu- 
rasthenic officers when the armistice was signed. Before this 
happy event, they felt that they were fit only for a base hospital 
—afterwards they manifested the most surprising zeal to be dis- 
charged from the hospital and get back to their organizations. 

B. The Parataxis of Special Disablement.—We may classify 
the special disablements, by which neurotic individuals escape 
their duty, as sensory and motor. Thus, we have a deafness and 
blindness of psychogenic origin acting as a defense reaction 
- against an unpleasant situation. The utility of such sensory anes- 
thesias is clearly apparent. Not so evident is the utility of cutane- 
ous areas of anesthesia in hysterical patients. Here they seem to 
have no direct function in the disabling mechanism. They may be 
interpreted as mere elements in a symptom complex, elements 
which, according to popular imagination, show the gravity of the 
situation. They may be easily produced in hysterical patients by 
merely attempting a sensory examination. Some maintain that 
they are always so produced, and never attempt to look for them. 
It is probable, however, that they antedate, in some cases, the 
physician’s examination, for while one sometimes gets the impres- 
sion that he is producing an area of anwsthesia by his tests and 
questions—in other cases the area is found so fully developed 
that it seems as if it must have existed previously. This must be 
so when the patient comes to a physician for the first time com- 
plaining of an area of numbness. 

Motor disablements consist mainly in the functional paral- 
yses and contractures, the aphonias (loss of speech), and the 
convulsive seizures. 

Case History.—The following war neurosis shows us several 
of these disabling mechanisms in the same patient. 
| The patient was a first lieutenant who was a telegraph opera- 

tor before enlisting in the regular army some years ago. Before 
coming to France he had seen service in Nicaragua, Vera Cruz, 
the Mexican border, and the Philippines, but had not been in 


228 THE DRIVING FORCES OF HUMAN NATURE 


any fighting. He came to France in April, 1918, and got to the 
front in May. He was under heavy shell fire in Alsace, but it. 
did not bother him. The first time he went over the top was 
west of the Meuse on September 25th. He had not advanced far 
when he was knocked down by a shell. He got up, but felt as 
if he had been all ‘‘churned up.’’ Just as he was getting on his 
feet another shell slammed him down flat. He went forward 
about two hundred yards, and then he does not know what 
happened. When he came to, about twenty-four hours later, he 
was in a hospital—not wounded, but only scratched a little. After 
a couple of weeks in hospitals he was sent back to his regiment. 
He marched with them to a reserve position near Verdun. He 
remained only about three days, and was sent back to the hospital 
for ‘‘blind spells’’ which kept him from doing his work. These 
spells came on after slight exertion. ‘‘ Everything would all haze 
up.’’ He would then get weak and be unable to stand. When 
he came to from his ‘‘shell-shock’’ his right ear felt dead, and the 
sealp all over the right side of his head was numb. In the hos- 
pital he had no spells—the only symptom which remained to be 
treated was the deafness. This naturally might have been due to 
a ruptured ear drum, caused by the explosion. He could not hear 
a loud-spoken voice at a few feet when the left ear was covered. 
The fact that there was also no bone conduction of sound on the 
right side suggested® that the whole condition might be func- 
tional. Suggestive treatment with the aid of a tuning fork and an 
electric battery was tried, and in about a quarter of an hour the 
deafness and numbness of the scalp had entirely cleared up. 
The spell of unconsciousness for which this officer was brought 
to the hospital was probably an hysterical seizure in action, which 
defended him against the necessity of any longer risking his life. 
His ‘‘blind spells’’ which eame on after he got back to his regi- 
ment saved him from the danger of again going to the front, and 
the hysterical deafness which he manifested in the hospital when 
I saw him, was one element in his complex of symptoms that 
* Bone conduction would have been intensified had the condition been 


due to a ruptured ear drum or any form of middle ear trouble due 
to concussion. 


PARATAXES OF DEFENSE 229 


would demonstrate the severity of the concussion experience 
which had brought on his disability. 

Anyone inclined to regard these so-called ‘‘shell-shock dis- 
abilities’’ as due to some organic disturbance from the concus- 
sion, would do well to consider the following facts: 

(1) Prisoners of war rarely develop war neuroses. They 
no longer have need of a defense reaction to get them out 
of danger. | 

(2) The wounded who have been subjected to the same concus- 
sion experiences and have been disabled by the flying shrapnel 
of exploding shells are immune from the symptoms of ‘‘shell- 
shock.’’ They are already disabled and need not develop a para- 
-taxis of disablement. 

(3) The gunners, working at the big guns, continually being 
subjected to concussion experiences, do not develop fune- 
tional disabilities. 

(4) The war neuroses clear up too quickly by suggestive 
therapy for us to look upon them as having an organic pathology. 

Convulsive seizures are frequently the cause of withdrawing 
an individual from his post of duty. They were very common at 
the front. In civil life they are often to be interpreted, not di- 
rectly as a means of withdrawal, but rather as a protest against a 
situation which is looked upon as unjust, but from which the 
patient feels powerless to escape. Thus, in one instance, a woman 
was having periodic convulsive seizures of an hysterical charac- 
ter for which the best specialists that she had consulted could find 
no cause. The mental history of the patient revealed the fact 
that she had made an agreement with her husband before mar- 
riage that all the boys would be brought up Protestant, and the 
girls Catholic. This arrangement had been made subsequent to 
a prior one before the priest in which the usual promise had been 
made that all the children would be brought up Catholic. After 
that the marriage was postponed, but she was later married, osten- 
sibly on the basis of the first agreement, the second one not being 
mentioned to the priest. The first child was a boy. She com- 
forted herself with the thought that later on everything would 
come out right. But when her husband let her understand that 


230 THE DRIVING FORCES OF HUMAN NATURE: 


he would insist on the agreement, her trouble started, and a little 
later she had her first seizure. With a subsequent pregnancy she 
commenced to worry acutely about the religious problem, and the 
number of her seizures increased. Persuasion to adopt a more rea- 
sonable type of reaction, to attempt to dominate the situation by 
the example of her life, pointing out the futility of the spells, etc., 
led to a distinct improvement. This did not last long, for I learned 
afterwards that she suffered a relapse into her old condition. 
That her spells were psychogenic and not epileptiform, was the 
decision of several eminent specialists who saw her and witnessed 
one of the seizures which lasted for several hours. That they 
were motivated by a protest which expressed the thought: ‘‘See 
what you have done to me by your harsh and uncompromising 
attitude,’’ is the interpretation which is warranted by the his- 
tory of the case. 

The Defense Reactions as Specific Impulses or Psychotaxes. 
— However varied their form, the defense reactions are spontane- 
ous tendencies to get out of an unpleasant situation merely by 
avoiding it. The mode of avoidance is indeed mental, but it is no 
less impulsive than the motor impulses that one experiences to get 
out of a cold bath, or to get in out of the rain, or to go from the 
sun to the shade on a hot day, etc. Just as these tendencies may be 
experienced for some time without being acted upon, so, also, the 
psychotaxes of defense. Thus, the tendency to protest by a convul- 
sive seizure may be experienced for days and weeks, but only be 
carried into action when an opportune moment arrives. Defense 
reactions are natural to all mankind. We all dislike to remem- 
ber certain unpleasant situations of the past, and to consider 
various disagreeable eventualities of the future. Thus, to really 
realize the absolute certainty of our own death, and that it may 
not be very far distant, is naturally unpleasant, and very dis- 
tinctly so, except to those who have schooled themselves in its 
thought. Most men have a spontaneous tendency to put this 
eventuality out of mind, and they just as spontaneously avoid 
everything that brings it up. Natural and spontaneous tenden- 
cies to make use of any ability in our mind to avoid an unpleas- 
ant thing, or a disagreeable situation, have every right to be 


PARATAXES OF DEFENSE 231 


considered impulses; and, because they are impulses which have 
to do with the problems which arise in unpleasant situations, 
they belong to that group of mental reactions that we have termed 
the psychotaxes and parataxes. 

Etiology of Defense Reactions.—The fundamental condition 
which calls forth a defense reaction is an unpleasant situation. 
_ The most natural thing to do with an unpleasant situation is to 
get out of it if you are in it, or to ward it off if it only impends. 
Children, before the age of reason, have no other way of dealing 
with pain and unhappiness. Later on, many considerations be- 
sides the pleasure of the moment enter into our deliberations. 
The rights of others, future consequences, moral problems, ete., 
are beyond the ken of the little child. The problem of training 
and education is to bring them within his ken, and enable him 
to settle things on other grounds than present whims and fancies. 
The true goal of education may be expressed as the attainment 
of the ability to shoulder the problems of life. Our horror of the 
unpleasant tends to make us throw that responsibility on the 
shoulders of others—to get out of it in any way, but at all events 
to avoid it. Thus, our defense reactions are constantly stimu- 
lated by our contact with the world. Many a fond mother tries 
to spare her child the bitterness which comes from unsatisfied 
desires, and so makes the vain attempt to raise him in an Eden 
of delight. Often this attempt to coddle the child commences at 
birth. The child is rocked and fed almost as often as it cries. 
There is no régime of life established, and the child soon learns 
that it gets what it wants by erying and tantrums. When it 
reaches the age of reason, there is no inculcation of principles of 
duty and self-sacrifice, and so it grows into boyhood and man- 
hood, and has no idea of dealing with an unpleasant situation 
other than to avoid it. The child never learned the lesson of 
shouldering responsibility, and the man cannot do so. 

The analogy between the spoiled child and the parataxis of 
defense is so striking that it strongly suggests that improper 
schooling for life has been one factor in bringing about the psy- 
choneuroses in which these reactions are dominating elements. 
A study, which would investigate the home-training of patients 


232 THE DRIVING FORCES OF HUMAN NATURE 


manifesting these psychotaxes, would probably reveal much ecod- 
dling and spoiling in their childhood. It would be difficult, how- 
ever, to get reliable witnesses from whom to gather information. 
The recognition of this psychogenic factor does not exclude a 
constitutional groundwork for the parataxis. Some children 
who have been spoiled at home learn their lesson when thrown 
upon the mercy of school companions. Others react with a para- 
taxis of withdrawal. Their negativism might have been avoided, 
had they been properly trained from infancy, but the reason why 
they are negativistic at boarding-school, and not ‘‘one of the 
bunch”’ is to be sought in constitutional hereditary factors. 
Treatment of Defense Reactions.—All treatment should 
spring from a knowledge of causes. If the etiology above sug- 
gested is correct, the prophylaxis of the parataxes of defense is 
to be commenced at birth with a rational hygiene and régime 
which will be the basis of future instructions in the principles 
of law and order, and which will teach the child from the outset 
that erying and tantrums are not the keys which open the door 
to satisfactions that are withheld or refused. Many of these 
parataxes of defense are simply the perseveration of childish 
reactions. Prophylaxis, then, should aim at eliminating them 
in the transition from childhood to boyhood. This is to be done 
by a strict régime in childhood regulating the hours of feeding 
and retiring, and later, of play and study. If a child has a tan- 
trum because he is denied something that he wants, he must be 
made to understand that this is no way to get it. If he has an 
hysterical convulsive seizure he is to be left alone till he comes 
out of it. As soon as possible he must be shown by examples and 
explanations that he is not in the world to seek his own personal 
pleasure, but to find something useful and do it; that he has 
duties, obligations, and responsibilities, and that there is nothing 
nobler in life than to assume them and bear them with dignity 
and honor. To shirk is a despicable and shameful act. I cannot 
believe that the whining evaders of responsibility that got into 
the psychiatrical wards in this country and in France were ever 
taught the moral lessons of human responsibility, or had ever 


PARATAXES OF DEFENSE 283 


learned. to sacrifice themselves even in little things for the wel- 
fare of others. 

Once a parataxic reaction has developed, further treatment 

depends upon its nature. The attempt must be made, at all haz- 
zards, to draw the shut-in type of patient out of his dreams and 
back to reality. He must be taught that it is far better to actually 
accomplish a simple job of carpentry than to dream of building 
temples; better to earn a penny than to picture oneself the proud 
possessor of millions. In many precox reaction types such efforts 
will be crowned with surprising success. Once a child of four 
was brought to the clinic. It was impossible to engage it in con- 
versation. At most, it answered ‘‘yes’’ or ‘‘no,’’ or echoed the 
_last words of your question (echolalia). It took peculiar atti- 
tudes, stared into space, suddenly fell into fixed positions. Flezi- 
bilitas cerea was well developed, that is, you could mold its 
legs and arms into any position and there they would remain 
indefinitely. The child’s mother had been recently taken to the 
insane asylum, and the child was in an orphan home where all 
the children were much older than itself. It had no playmates, 
and had lost its mother. On the assumption that these katatonie 
symptoms were associated with the shut-in reaction type, and, 
therefore, symptomatic of a parataxis of recoil, I argued that the 
condition could be cured if the child were placed with other 
children of its own age who would get it to playing, and so draw 
it out of itself. This recommendation was accordingly made, and 
was carried out with surprisingly successful results. The mental 
condition cleared up, and within a week it was laughing, and 
playing, and talking like other children. Traces of the flexibili- 
tas cerea lasted longer, and could be demonstrated weeks later— 
though they would have passed unnoticed by one who had not seen 
the child when the condition was at its height,“ 

In treating the parataxes of disablement, one should find out, 
if possible, the motivation which lies at the bottom of the condi- 
tion, and then attempt to find, for the patient, some more satis- 

‘factory solution, and, if possible, create a desire to get well. If 
this can be done the cure can then be hastened by such suggestive 
means as an electric battery. Physiological explanations help 

16 


234 THE DRIVING FORCES OF HUMAN NATURE 


whenever they are in place. Thus, to explain the mechanism of 
muscular contraction to a patient with a disabling tremor, the 
contraction of the agonists and relaxation of the antagonists, to 
show him that a tremor must result when both sets of muscles 
contract, and then to take his trembling arm, for example, and 
temporarily conquer the tremor by a few movements of relaxa- 
tion, and assure him that he can do the same—all helps to make 
the tremor disappear. I have seen arm tremors of patients just 
back from the battlefield clear up permanently in two or three 
minutes with such treatment.?° 

Hysterical convulsive seizures should be made ‘‘not worth- 
while’’ by neglecting them as of absolutely no significance, or 
by treating them with an emetic. An hysterical girl was once 
brought to the clinic—her face all broken out. with a bromide erup- 
tion. In spite of heavy doses of bromides, her nightly convulsive 
seizures had not been overcome. Directions were given to have 
her sleep alone, well away from anyone else, and to, pay no atten- 
tion to any future convulsions, and to stop the bromides. After 
one tantrum, which she was left to finish by herself, the convul- 
sive seizures ceased. She uttered the complaint, however, that 
nobody cared whether she died in one of her spells or not. 

Ingenuity in finding more reasonable solutions for the 
patient’s unpleasant situation, persuasion, and encouragement 
to bear his burden manfully, sympathy and kindliness, all have 
their function in dealing with these cases. Whatever we may 
think of the moral degradation of a shirker had best be kept to 
ourselves till we have cured the patient’s disability. We may 
then instruct and philosophize. I once made the mistake of letting 
a big, strapping fellow know what I thought of his limp and 
hysterical gait. He at once became very antagonistic to me, and 
clung tightly to his disability in order to prove that I was a very 
poor diagnostician. 

Opening new vistas and channels of compensation and subli- 
mation has its function in these, as well as in the other parataxes. 


Cf. infra, p. 295 ff. 


CHAPTER VIII 
COMPENSATION 


The Concept of Compensation.—The root of compensation 
lies in our multiple interests in life. Our impulses and desires 
are many and diverse, and, therefore, the possible modes in which 
they may be satisfied are many and diverse. At the beginning 
of life, all ways are more or less equally possible, for none has 
been tasted. With tasting develops appreciation, and a craving 
for more. This results in an eventual fixation on some form of 
satisfaction which ultimately dominates life, and, if adequate, 
leads to more or less peace and happiness. 

Through the accidents of life—sickness, death, financial loss, 
the intervention of other human beings, ete.—the psychic fixation 
may be broken, and the plan of life on which it depended disin- 
tegrated. The result is unhappiness and restlessness. We have al- 
ready considered some of the readjustments that such calamities 
bring about. Very different from these is the compensatory re- 
adjustment. It is perhaps the antithesis of the psychotaxis of 
depression. Depression leads to sadness and inactivity ; compen- 
sation, to an attempt to get rid of sadness by action that leads 
to a refixation. Compensation, therefore, is an attempt to make 
good one loss by finding an equivalent substitute. The compensa- 
ting character must be active. He demands promptly the equiva- 
lent of his loss. He cannot mope and mourn. He may even dis- 
regard the sanctioned customs of religion and society that he may 
promptly make good the deficit in his mental life. 

Ordinary Compensation.—Not every loss knocks out the key- 
stone of the arch in our hierarchy of desires. There are great 
losses and little ones, and so there are, corresponding to these 
losses, major and minor compensations. Many of these minor 
compensations are trivial indeed, but they mean a great deal in 
the general tone of the mental life. The United States Army 
realized the value of these minor compensations when it sanc- 
tioned the establishment of the Red Cross, Y. M. C. A., and 

235 


236 THE DRIVING FORCES OF HUMAN NATURE 


K. of C. huts in the eamps and hospitals in this country and in 
France; and furthered the work of entertainment carried on by 
the chaplains. What was thus offered to the soldiers was, when 
we leave out of consideration religious service, nothing but a 
series of trifles; but these trifles prevented many a mental break- 
down, and sprinkled a life that would have been otherwise 
scarcely endurable, with moments of rest and enjoyment. 

In civil life also, the theatre, the movies, and all the varied 
and numerous entertainments of modern life, offer some compen- 
sation for trivial losses, and even lighten the burden of those 
who have suffered life’s gravest calamities. 

Wit is often the compensation of one whose inner life is far 
from the peaceful content that comes to him who has worked out 
a satisfactory solution to the riddle of existence. 

Literature is a twofold compensation: First of all, to him 
who composes the poem or the novel or the short story, and sec- 
ondly, to his readers. The author dreams of his own unfulfilled 
desires and compensates himself for life’s disappointments by 
living out in imagination the dream that he weaves for his 
readers; his readers are charmed and attracted because they see 
in the hero or heroine one whose lot they secretly wish might be 
theirs. Therefore, it is possible to analyze an author by analyz- 
ing his poems or his romances; or to get an insight into the deeper 
trends of anyone’s life by learning what poems or novels he finds 
particularly interesting. 

It is not necessary to write in order to dream. Many are the 
unrecorded dreams that some people indulge in during the wak- 
ing hours of the day. Some take keen delight in this vain and 
fruitless exercise, wasting hours that might lay the foundation 
of real accomplishment, and lead to the enjoyment in reality of 
what they are doomed to taste oniy in their dreams. 

The dreams of the night, though involuntary, and quickly 
forgotten, are nevertheless compensatory mechanisms. To a 
large extent, they are, as we have seen, wish-fulfilments, and, as 
such, act perhaps as safety valves, lessening to some extent the 
nervous tension of repression that makes part of the burden of 
the day. 


COMPENSATION 237 


Pets and playthings of one kind or another compensate for 
more adequate sources of human satisfaction. Many a woman 
lavishes on a dog the affection that should go, by right, to a child 
of her own or of her adoption. Unfortunately, however, dogs are 
more frequently adopted than children. 

Intellectual pursuits compensate only a few, and yet art, 
music or science are fully adequate to give to a human being a 
high degree of natural peace and content. 

The minor share of the things of the mind in the compensa- 
tions of the age is probably due to the fact that education aims 
too much in our day at mere bread winning and too little at 
awakening of the mind to the appreciation of the treasures of 
the intellectual life. And hence education too often launches 
men on a career, but leaves them helpless in case of mental ship- 
wreck on any one of the reefs of life’s calamities. 

Companionship and the sympathy that it provides affords the 
most common and the deepest compensation of our day. Alter 
alterius onera portate. Mutual kindness is the source of life’s 
most genuine and deepest compensation. 

. The Parataxis of Compensation.—It is easy for any one of 
the ordinary compensations to become pathological by diverting 
the mind from an adequate goal in life, by absorbing one’s energies 
entirely, or accentuating a type of behavior that is unproductive 
and useless. 

How many there are who idle their life away in trifles. Amuse- 
ments that are meant as a momentary diversion become their 
daily occupation. Day-dreaming, which might be pardonable as 
the occasional occupation of an adolescent, leads some perma- 
nently to a life of unreality. 

Friendship and kindly help are true sources of consolation to 
one who has lost a friend by death, or perhaps never had a true 
friend. They become true helps because the affection bestowed 
formerly on the relative or friend departed is unconsciously 
transferred to or, to speak more correctly, refixated on the one 
who helps and sympathizes. It is in general impossible for 
the one who helps and sympathizes to fully replace the one 
who is lost. Divine friendship alone can be universally extensive. 


238 THE DRIVING FORCES OF HUMAN NATURE 


When the one who suffers attempts to make the partial transfer of 
ordinary friendships fully satisfy the loss sustained, this transfer 
becomes pathological, inasmuch as it prevents a normal readjust- 
ment with its multiple interests in life and fruitful occupation. 

The line in which compensation is most likely to become patho- 
logical is sympathy. It is most remarkable to observe the extreme 
lengths to which men as well as women will go to get their much- 
eraved sympathy. I can eall to mind an able-bodied man at a 
funeral who had to be petted and coddled by his wife and daugh- 
ter. His demonstrations of sorrow, certainly as far as outward 
appearances were concerned, looked like attempts to eall forth 
sympathetic caresses that he enjoyed rather than genuine expres- 
sions of grief that he could not restrain. 

There are a number of convulsive seizures that are to be 
explained as mentally motivated by an appeal for sympathy. 

A fairly common psychic disorder is the loss of the voice— 
an aphonia. Such an affliction attracts attention, and with the 
attention comes the much-craved commiseration. I have seen 
several such eases, all of which yielded promptly, even though 
of months’ or years’ duration, to a little persuasion reinforced by 
the electric battery. 

In one of these, the aphonia came on during a spell of illness 
in which the patient learned that a man to whom she was engaged 
had married someone else. The aphonia merely declared to all 
observers that she had been badly treated. ‘‘See,’’ it said con- 
stantly, ‘‘what he has gone and done to me!”’ 

During the war there were a number of eases of so-called 
‘‘shell-shock’’ whose chief manifestation was trembling of the 
body or gross involuntary movements of arms or legs, or both. 
Most of these were cured promptly by a few relaxation exercises 
immediately on being received in the neurological hospital. Those 
who were not cured were put to bed. If in a day or so the tremb- 
ling did not cease they were screened off so that no one in the ward 
could see them. What could not be seen was not worth having. 
It obtained no sympathy, and so there was no longer any reason 
why the ‘‘shell-shock’’ should not disappear, which it promptly 
did, and thereby the tedious isolation was brought to a close. 


COMPENSATION 239 


Once sympathy has been tasted it soon becomes an end in 
itself. I remember a doctor’s wife who had frequent tantrums 
and crying spells. These led to a great deal of nursing and pet- 
ting by her husband and her mother. They even necessitated her 
being taken to a hospital where she absorbed much more of her 
husband’s time than he could possibly have given her were she 
well. In less than a week she became a brand new woman under 
the following treatment: 

1. Isolation from her mother and husband till she had com- 
plete control of herself. 

2. Assurance that if this control were not established within 
a reasonable time that she would have to be taken to an asylum. 

3. Plain explanation to her of her conduct as an unreasonable 
appeal for sympathy. Pointing out to her that she was wasting 
her life in these tantrums and preparing the way for the disinte- 
gration of her married life. Though this ‘‘dénouement’’ called 
forth tears and protests, she told us the next day that she had 
resolved to get control of herself. And in a few days she did so, 
and in general appearance and behavior underwent a remark- 
able transformation which has been maintained now for over a 
year without relapse. 

Another case in which the craving for sympathy and attention 
manifested itself as an end in itself rather than a compensation 
for a loss sustained, was the following: 

A young girl was brought to the clinic because she was sup- 
posed to be possessed by the devil. The reason for this supposi- 
tion was that she had weird tantrums that prevented her going 
to school (defense reaction), and that the feathers in her pillow 
were found tied together with peculiar shreds of cloth in the 
most remarkable fashion. How it occurred to anyone to open 
the pillow and discover these wonderful ‘‘manifestations’’ I 
could never learn. I suggested that the pillows be sewed up and 
never opened again and that if she had any more tantrums she 
was to be scalded down the back with uncomfortably hot water, 
given asafetida and put to bed for twenty-four hours. The 
spells stopped and the feathers were not molested thereafter, and 
her schooling suffered no further interruptions from these spells. 


240 THE DRIVING FORCES OF HUMAN NATURE 


I have seen many children whose ills were consciously fabri- 
cated, or perhaps more likely unconsciously exaggerated, for the 
sake of the petting and interest their imaginary sickness obtained. 

Treatment of the Parataxis of Compensation.—One reason 
why it is possible for human beings to make these bizarre appeals 
for sympathy, is that they do not understand themselves and what 
they are doing. Unworthy motives are easily repressed into the 
background of one’s mental life, and hence results abnormal be- 
havior. What would disgust, if seen in others, is carried out 
without insight by themselves. One often only needs to know 
and understand in order to correct one’s abnormal behavior. 
This is true at least of the better types of character. The lower 
types often refuse to cooperate, or cannot understand. 

Prophylactic treatment should consist in a wider dissemina- 
tion of psychological information about abnormal behavior. This 
will give the world in general a better insight into unworthy 
appeals for sympathy, and make it less likely that such appeals 
will be heard. 

In an actual case, treatment should involve an spaces 
of conduct whenever the mentality is capable of understanding it. 
Understanding, however, is not necessary for a cure of the symp- 
toms. One need only make them not worth while, and they will 
promptly disappear. When this is done there seems, at times, 
to be an unconscious logic at work even in the hopelessly obtuse, 
and for some reason or other, what is once found to be not worth 
having is never sought again. . 


CHAPTER IX 
SUBLIMATION 


THE TERM ‘‘sublimation’’ as used in modern psychology 
comes from the science of chemistry. In chemistry, sublimation 
is one of the processes by which a salt may be purified. If a vola- 
tile salt is heated beneath a bell-jar, it vaporizes and the vapor 
rises to the cool dome of the jar and there recrystallizes in its 
pure state. In the psychoanalytic school, sublimation is a term 
used to indicate a change in the mode of satisfaction of desires 
in which an outlet is no longer sought at their previous lower 
levels but on what sociologically is a much higher plane. Thus, 
one disappointed in love is said to sublimate when, in his later 
life, he seeks an outlet along lines of religious activity or general 
social betterment. The new activity in some way stands as a 
symbol of the satisfaction of the former craving. The elevation, 
according to the Freudian school, is, however, not real but merely 
a masked indulgence of the same old craving. Therefore, psycho- 
analysts attempt by the process of analysis to seek out the fun- 
damental craving of human nature which is ever manifesting 
itself in one and the same way. 

According to Freud, the driving forces of human nature are 
the impulses. All impulses are essentially one because an impulse 
in itself has no quality. The source of impulsive activity is an 
organ of the body. All organs of the body give rise (a) to this 
undifferentiated impulse, (b) to a specific sexual excitant. The 
real driving force, according to Freud, is the sexual excit- 
ant, which, in all impulses, is ever the same. This sexual excitant, 
therefore, is the only thing that gives to an impulse a specific 
quality. All impulses have this specific quality and none other, 
if Freud’s ideas are carried to their logical conclusion. There- 
fore, according to Freud no matter what man seeks or on 
however high a level his impulsive activity may apparently 
manifest itself, it is nevertheless one and the same craving for 
sexual satisfaction. 

241 


242 THE DRIVING FORCES OF HUMAN NATURE 


‘‘By an ‘impulse’ we can understand, in the first place, noth- 
ing but the psychic representative of a continually flowing 
internal somatie source of excitement, in contradistinction to 
the ‘stimulus’ which is produced by isolated excitements coming 
from without. The impulse is thus one of the concepts marking 
the limits between the psychic and the physical. The simplest 
and most obvious assumption concerning the nature of the im- 
pulses would be that in themselves they possess no quality, but 
are only taken into account as a measure of the demand for effort 
in the psychic life. What distinguishes the impulses from one 
another and furnishes them with specific attributes is their rela- 
tion to their somatic sources and their aims. The source of the 
impulse is an exciting process in an organ, and the immediate aim 
of the impulse lies in the elimination of the organic stimulus. 

‘Another preliminary assumption in the theory of the im- 
pulse which we cannot relinquish, states that the bodily organs 
furnish two kinds of excitements which are determined by differ- 
ences of a chemical nature. One of these forms of excitement 
we designate as the specifically sexual, and the concerned organ 
as the erogenous zone, while the sexual element emanating from 
it is the partial impulse.’ 

Freud looks upon the tendency of sexuality to deviate to new 
and hidden aims as one of the most important factors in the better- 
ment of the human race. 

‘‘The historians of civilization seem to be unanimous in the 
opinion that such deviation of sexual motive powers from 
sexual aims to new aims, a process which merits the name 
sublimation, has furnished powerful components for all ecul- 
tural accomplishments. ’”? 

Jung conceives of the nature of impulsive activity in a 
somewhat different manner. According to Jung, there is 
only one psychic energy, the libido of the organism. Libido 
is to the organism what energy is to the universe. The 
modern concept of energy recognizes only one fundamental 
kinetic power, which manifests itself now as heat, now as 


*Three Contributions to Sexual Theory, trans. by Brill, 1916, p. 33. 
* Op. cit., p. 41. 


SUBLIMATION 243 


light, now as electricity, now as movements of the heavenly 
bodies, but at bottom it is all one and the same energy, and can 
be defined as that which moves a mass with a given velocity. So, 
Jung says, in all the various forms of human activity there is one 
and the same driving force, the lzbido of the organism. Originally, 
libido had to do with nothing but the propagation of the species, 
but in the course of development a certain amount of it must be 
transformed or deviated so as to serve in the acquisition of food, 
protection of the young, ete. This deviation of the primal 
libido into other channels is continuously going on in the 
human organism. 

‘‘The process of transformation of the primal libido into sec- 
_ ondary impulses always took place in the form of affluxes of sexual 
libido, that is to say, sexuality became deflected from its original 
destination and a portion of it turned, little by little, increasing 
in amount, into the phylogenetic impulse of the mechanism of 
allurement and of protection of the young. This diversion of 
the sexual libido from the sexual territory into associated fune- 
tions is still taking place. When this operation succeeds without 
injury to the adaptation of the individual it is called sublimation. 
When the attempt does not succeed it is called repression.’”® 

The Unity or Multiplicity of the Driving Forces of Human 
Nature.—When we come to consider whether or not the driving 
forces of human nature are one or many, we should recall in 
the first place that however varied the forms of satisfaction, there 
is always only one individual to be satisfied. There is, therefore, 
a kind of unity in the modes of satisfaction which comes from 
reference of all drives ultimately to the satisfaction of the one per- 
sonality. This, however, does not argue for the essential unity of 
the modes of satisfaction, any more than the fact that all percep- 
tions are cognized by the one ego demonstrates that there is no 
difference in the forms of perception. For sight and sound are 
channels of perception for the one individual, and yet, sight and 
sound are different modes of perception and cannot be reduced 
to one and the same thing. In the same way two desires are 


* Psychology of the Unconscious, trans. by Hinkle, 1916, p. 150. Cf. 
also infra, p. 266. 


244 THE DRIVING FORCES OF HUMAN NATURE 


cravings of the one person; but two desires may, for all that, be 
two different psychical entities. 

In the analysis of impulses and desires that we have given, 
we found that there are just as many impulses and desires as 
there are abilities in a human being. We must, therefore, recog- 
nize a number of impulses psychologically different, and it cannot 
be said that any one of these is the sole driving force of human 
nature. The transformations of physical energy to light, sound, 
heat, ete., have been studied by careful experiment, and measure- 
ments have been made of the amount of energy at the beginning 
and end of the experiments, and this quantity of energy is found 
to be invariable. Nothing of this kind has been done to make 
Jung’s hypothesis of the ‘‘libido’’ any more than a fanciful 
analogy. ‘To substantiate it one should be able to measure the 
psychic energy in any one of the impulses; for example, the motor 
impulses and the psychie energy in the craving for knowledge, 
the intellectual impulse, and thus demonstrate by measurement 
that when one is transformed into the other no psychic energy 
is lost. Merely to put the question in such terms as this shows 
how impossible it is to reduce Jung’s theory from an idle specu- 
lation to an established fact. 

Concept of Sublimation.—Assuming, therefore, that we 
have as many impulses as we have forms of mental abilities, 
we may recognize two types of individuals. (1) In some char- 
acters the impulses all have a tendency to centre. themselves 
in the ego, so that if a person is disappointed in one way of 
satisfying himself, he seeks another mode of attaining his satis- 
faction. (2) There are other characters whose impulsive drives 
have a tendency to lead the individual outside of himself so 
that if he has suffered a disappointment in some personal satis- 
faction, he seeks an outlet in doing something which is not merely 
a compensation that satisfies himself, but is a mode of activity 
that brings him into relation to other beings so that he is of 
service to them. Whenever an individual compensates for a dis- 
appointment or makes good an unsatisfactory type of behavior 
by doing something of value to other beings, he may be said 


SUBLIMATION 245 


to sublimate. This concept of sublimation differs, evidently, 
from that of Freud or Jung. 

There are two forms of sublimation, the social and the relig- 
ious, according as the form of activity has to do with other human 
beings or with God. It is to be noted that there sometimes exists 
an analogy between the form of sublimation which is chosen and 
the past disappointment or form of unsatisfactory behavior. It 
is therefore likely that the craving which dominated the older 
drive is partially active in the later sublimation. It may lend to it 
a peculiar charm and determine that this particular form of 
sublimation may be chosen rather than another. It does not, 
however, explain why a sublimation is attempted rather than a 
- pure compensation. 

The reasons why sublimations are attempted rather than 
compensations are, in the first place, the blocking which termi- 
nates some form of human satisfaction, and, in the second place, 
a type of character or accidental influences from the environment, 
education, personal influence, ete., that lead an individual to 
seek forms of activity that involve the welfare of others rather 
than pure personal satisfaction. 

Sublimation as an Impulse——A moderate experience with 
human nature will lead one to recognize the difference which is 
pointed out between compensators and sublimators. Some people 
never sublimate and never can be persuaded to seek a form of 
activity which does not terminate in their own self-aggrandize- 
ment. The difference is just as marked as the difference which 
exists between people who always attempt to compensate by a 
new form of activity and those who have no marked tendency 
to do this but simply mourn or worry over an impossible situa- 
tion. There are idealistic types of individuals who are continu- 
ally dreaming of social betterment, political reforms, religious 
activities, ete. It is worth while noting here that when we say 
that an individual manifests a tendency to sublimate and not a 
tendency to compensate, this does not mean that compensators 
have no tendency to sublimate; and sublimators no tendency to 
compensate ; but only that some individuals manifest sublimating 
tendencies much more strongly than they do compensating ten- 


246 THE DRIVING FORCES OF HUMAN NATURE 


dencies. In fact, it is to be taken as a working hypothesis that all 
of the tendencies of the worst of us are in the best of us, and 
vice versa. 

Parataxic Sublimations.—Many sublimations are perfectly 
normal and healthy. There are others, however, that are unreason- 
able drives that lead to the detriment of the individual. When- 
ever a person is afflicted by a drive that will lead to no positive 
advantage either to himself or to the human race, we may con- 
clude that he is suffering from some kind of mental abnormality. 
Thus, for instance, shortly after the close of the World War a 
young man with a good education and a lucrative position that 
gave promise of still further advancement, came to me mainly 
because of a sense of inferiority that he had experienced in his 
dealings with others. He also had a drive which he looked upon 
as a noble and worthy tendency. He had heard of some kind of 
legion that was being enlisted in Europe to fight the Bolsheviki 
and he felt called upon to go over and join this battalion and do 
battle against forces that were making for the dissolution of 
human society. I naturally suspected that a drive of such nature 
was in some manner connected with the feeling of inferiority, and 
this suspicion was confirmed. His feeling of inferiority went 
back to childhood. He was somewhat weaker than other children 
and never could make much use of athletic sports, but neverthe- 
less had a craving to excel. He was further very sensitive 
about his personal appearance. He thought his nose was exces- 
sively long, and that as soon as he saw anyone they would remark 
the length of his nose, and that, therefore, whenever he met 
other individuals he was at a distinct disadvantage. He had 
had other impulses besides the anti-Bolsheviki drive, such as to 
make good by study, ete. 

As said above, there is often some kind of analogy between 
the complex and the special form of sublimation sought. It is 
to be noted that this young man was sensitive about his nose. 
He was not a Jew, but he had been frequently taken for a Jew. 
He, therefore, adopts a form of sublimation in which he sacri- 
fices his life and his opportunities to combating the Jews in the 
form of Bolshevism. I explained to the young man the mechan- 


SUBLIMATION Q47 


isms that the history of his hfe and his present tendencies indi- 
eated were at work in his mind. I also told him to read Alfred 
Adler’s Neurotic Constitution. He came back, a few days after I 
had given him Adler’s work, laughing, tremendously elated, thor- 
oughly satisfied that he understood himself, and entirely free 
from any design to go over to Russia and fight the Jews. 

Many reform movements, while good in themselves, will take 
on, in some individuals, the form of a parataxic sublimation. I 
have listened from time to time to ardent militant suffragettes, 
and have been very interested to find out later that a number of 
these excited Amazons had had unhappy love affairs; either they 
Were married and had very unfortunate experiences with their 
_ husbands, or perhaps, had never married because of some un- 
happy incident, and therefore, they rose up in protest against 
_ all male members of the species and strove to work for the better- 
ment of society by political reforms in which woman will finally 
be elevated, not only to her true sphere, but will triumph over the 
eruelty and stupidity of man. 

Treatment of Parataxic Sublimations, —The treatment of 
parataxic sublimations has already been indicated. We must, 
in the first place, look for some form of pathological association 
with a complex; that is to say, with a past unhappy or unfor- 
tunate, emotional experience. We must try to analyze the source 
of the feeling of inferiority which leads to an over-compensation 
or sublimation, not along lines of rational adjustment, but in a 
groove dictated by the pathological association. We must reason 
with such idealists, at times, that five cents actually gained is 
better than to dream of the possession of millions. We must 
attempt to direct a good impulse into rational channels. But, 
after all, the sublimator is much more likely to be a useful mem- 
ber of society than the mere compensator or mourner. We must 
remember that a great deal of the energy of important moves 
for social welfare comes from these hidden complexes, and 
this energy needs only to be rationally directed in order to 
-aeccomplish a work for society that would otherwise be left undone. 

Normal Sublimations.—These natural impulses may, very 
often, be made to conform to the dictates of reason, and in this 


248 THE DRIVING FORCES OF HUMAN NATURE 


way a valuable character trait may be made use of in social 
service or religious activity for the welfare of the human race. 
Many conversions or sublimations have in one way or another 
been brought about in a human being with an inadequate adjust- 
ment to life. The following editorial from the Washington Post, 
entitled ‘‘A Life Redeemed,’’ gives a good example of a useful 
sublimation. The special form of the sublimation is here, 
as is often the case, clearly associated with the complex in 
past experience. 

‘‘Tt was as Lena Cuen, a girl of twenty, that the woman, who 
afterward became the bane of the life of New York policemen, left 
her home in Troy, twenty years ago to become a stenographer. The 
young girl fell a victim to the gay life of the tenderloin, took the 
name of Mary Goode, and became a notorious character, paying 
blackmail to policemen and gunmen. 

“‘Some years ago Mrs. Goode reformed. She did not con- 
tent herself with leading a respectable life, but threw all her 
energy, time, and money to the reclaiming of girls who had gone 
astray. Upon her wall she hung this motto: What have I done 
this day to help others and make the world better? 

‘‘Army officers in Europe dismissed in disgrace for some 
seemingly unpardonable offense have won redemption through 
the European war. They have won back their place among their 
fellows as ‘officers and gentlemen.’ Mary Goode redeemed her- 
self in like manner. The last years of her life were those of a 
noble woman, ever ready to do good and to help her fallen sisters. 
She more than repaid any debt owed to society. Others who have 
never sinned, except through omission, may find the balance even 
at the end, but the balance sheets of Mary Goode showed more on 
the credit than on the debit side when her Hones were closed 
by death.’’ | 

Sublimations approach rational readjustments, bit there is a 
big difference between a sublimation and a rational readjust- 
ment. Very frequently the sublimation runs counter to the 
dictates of reason, as in the example of the young man who 
wished to go to Russia and fight the Bolsheviki. On the other 
hand, a tendency to sublimate may, of itself, be inadequate as a 


SUBLIMATION 249 


drive to action, and may merely be a plan which the unconscious 
suggests, and which is taken up, considered, weighed carefully, 
and finally adopted or supplanted by another plan which seems 
more in accordance with the dictates of reason. Those who would 
make no mistake in the management of themselves and their 
affairs should never yield to the blind drive to sublimate, but 
should mold their lives by rational adjustments and readjust- 
ments to the difficulties of life. 


17 


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PART V 
PSYCHOANALYSIS AND PSYCHOTHERAPY! 


1For a fair exposition of the psychoanalytic theories see Poul Bjerre, 
The History and Practice of Psychoanalysis, trans. Eliz. Barrow, 1916, p. 
294. J. H. van der Hoop, Character and the Unconscious. A Critical 
Exposition of the Theories of Freud and Jung, trans. by Eliz. Trevelyan. 
London, 1923, pp. viii-+ 223. John T. MacCurdy, Problems in Dynamic 
Psychology, Cambridge and New York, 1923, pp. xv-+ 383. For a some- 
what different type of psychotherapy see Dejerine and Gauckler, The 
Psychoneuroses and Their Treatment by Psychotherapy, trans. by S. E. 
Jelliffe, 2d ed., Phila., 1915, pp. xii +- 395. Paul Dubois, The Psychic Treat- 
ment of Mental Disorders, 5th ed., New York, 1908, pp. vi + 466. 


4h if 
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wt 


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MO alee 


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Me Hey Wid aa 
Jeph Hal ah ee} 





CHAPTERI 


FREUD 


WHEN a student attempts to get his first insight into psycho- 
analysis, he is likely to seek a psychological background which 
will enable him to consider the psychoanalytic theories from 
a scientific point of view. This, however, is impossible. Psy- 
choanalysis was not developed by psychologists, but by psychia- 
trists, and there has been no systematic attempt to work out a 
psychological foundation for any of the psychoanalytic theories. 

Origin of Psychoanalysis.—-Psychoanalysis had its origin in 
the treatment of neurotic patients. It is a method, not a philo- 
sophical or a psychological theory. In fact, Freud specifically 
rejects any attempt to develop a psychological foundation. 
‘‘Psychoanalysis,’’ he says, ‘‘has never claimed to give a perfect 
theory of the human psychic life, but has only demanded that its 
discoveries should be used for the completion and correction of 
knowledge gained elsewhere.’” 

In fact, he criticises Adler for having attempted to be psy- 
chological when he continues: ‘‘But Alfred Adler’s theory goes 
far beyond this goal. It pretends to explain with one stroke the 
behavior and character of men as well as their neurotic and 
psychotic maladies.’’* 

If, therefore, we are going to understand psychoanalysis, 
we must go back to its beginning as a method of therapeutic 
procedure. 

Psychoanalysis grew out of the attempt by Breuer and 
Freud to treat hysterical patients by hypnosis. They repeatedly 
found that a definite hysterical symptom could be traced back 
to some emotional incident with which the symptom was asso- 
ciated. They attempted to discover this incident by hypnosis 
and they found, to their great surprise, that when it was un- 

* History of the Psychoanalytic Movement, p. 41. 

* Loc. cit., pp. 41, 42. 

253 


254 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND PSYCHOTHERAPY 


covered the patient was cured. ‘‘The special hysterical symp- 
toms disappeared,’’ they said, ‘‘at once, to return no more when 
we succeeded in awakening to perfect clarity the memory of 
the causal incident and along with it to make the patient live 
over again the accompanying emotion, and have him describe 
the incident in detail, and express the emotion in words.’”* 

They give a number of examples of accidental occurrences in 
which some physical or psychical phenomenon was associated 
with an emotional incident, and was perpetuated and compli- 
cated later in a full-blown hysteria, or perhaps lived on as an 
isolated symptom. 

‘‘A girl is watching in painful anxiety at the bedside of one 
who is sick. She falls into a twilight state, and experiences 
a frightful hallucination while her right arm ‘goes to sleep,’ 
as it hangs over the edge of the sofa. From this there develops 
a paresis of the arm with contracture and anesthesia. She wants 
to pray, but the words will not come to her. Finally, she manages 
to utter a child’s prayer in English. Later, there developed a 
serious, highly complicated hysteria during which, for a year 
and a half, she did not understand her mother tongue, and 
spoke, wrote, and understood English only.’’ 

‘‘A very sick child finally goes to sleep. The mother strains 
every effort to keep herself quiet that she may not wake the 
child. Precisely because of this resolve, she makes (‘hysterical 
counterwish’) a snorting noise with the tongue. This happens 
again on another occasion when she wants to keep herself abso- 
lutely quiet. From that there develops a tic which accompanies 
every excitement for years as a kind of snorting noise made by 
the tongue.’”® 

The theory which Breuer and Freud propounded to account 
for the perpetuation of the symptom was based on the fact 
that every situation which is emotionally toned normally results 
In various emotional expressions, in a bodily and mental reson- 
ance that constitutes the normal outflow of emotional life. When, 
however, for some reason this emotional expression is blocked, 


*Breuer und Freud, Studien tiber Hysterie, 1895, p. 4. 
5 Loc. cit., pp. 2, 3. 


FREUD 255 


the energy remains pent up in the individual, and is continually 
striving to find an outlet. If now the memory of the past inci- 
dent is called to mind, and the patient reproduces the whole 
situation and abreacts, that is, lives out the emotional expression, 
the repressed ideas lose their potency, and the patient is cured. 

Breuer took no more part in the development of psychoanaly- 
sis after the publication of this work in joint authorship with 
Freud. Freud continued his investigations, and whereas he 
and Breuer had made use of hypnosis as a means of finding out 
what emotional incidents of the past were responsible for the 
condition, Freud attempted a new method which would be 
applicable to all patients. This was desirable because hypnotism 
‘may be used with relatively few, for not everyone can be 
hypnotized. The new method developed into the technique 
of psychoanalysis. 

It is interesting to note that the difficulty lying at the basis 
of the hysterical symptoms was never found by Freud to be 
a recent occurrence, but something long past. This was the 
general experience of himself and Breuer in the earlier study. 
Thus, they wrote: ‘‘Quite frequently (ganz hdufig) there are 
events dating back to childhood that develop a more or less 
serious disease-symptom throughout all the following years.’” 

Freud, with his usual tendency to generalization, changed 
the “‘quite frequently’’ of Breuer into ‘‘always,’’? and found, 
moreover, that the incident not only was one of the past, but 
went back to the earliest days of childhood. ‘‘As one of the 
latest achievements of psychoanalysis we have lately been 
admonished to put the actual conflict and the cause of the 
illness into the foreground of analysis. This is exactly what 
Breuer and I did in the beginning of our work with the cathartic 
method. We guided the patient’s attention directly to the 
traumatic scene during which the symptom had arisen, tried 
to find therein the psychic conflict and to free the repressed 
effect. We thus discovered the procedure characteristic of the 
psychic processes of the neuroses which I later termed regres- 
sion. The associations of the patients went back from the scene 
MAR LOsicit. prove ye hl ke) Ea I mare EAT 


256 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND PSYCHOTHERAPY 


to be explained to earlier experiences, and this forced the analy- 
sis, which was to correct the present, to occupy itself with the 
past. This regression led even further backwards. At first it 
went quite regularly to the time of puberty. Later, however, 
such failures as gaps in the understanding tempted the ana- 
lytie work further back into the years of childhood which had, 
hitherto, been inaccessible to every sort of investigation. This 
regressive direction became an important characteristic of the 
analysis. It was proved that psychoanalysis could not clear up 
anything actual, except by going back to something in the past. 
It even proved that every pathological experience presupposes 
an earlier one which, though not itself pathological, lent a patho- 
logical quality to the later occurrence.’” 

Freud’s Therapeutic Procedure.—Let us now consider just 
what Freud’s technique is in a psychoanalytic treatment. 
Hitschmann, one of his students, gives an account of just what 
takes place: ‘‘Freud, instead of hypnotizing his patient, asks 
him to allow his mind to wander and give expression to every- 
thing that comes into it, for it is by the patient’s associations 
that he hopes to get back to his complex, that is, the buried emo- 
tional incident which is causing his trouble. Freud’s idea is 
that the patient’s difficulty will finally find expression if the 
mind is only allowed to wander and express every association 
that comes up before him, and every memory that rises to 
consciousness. 

‘‘In order to strengthen these associations, Freud uses the 
following outside means of assistance: He has the patient re- 
celine comfortably on a couch while he sits on a chair behind 
and outside his line of vision. He does not insist upon the eyes 
being closed, and avoids any touch, as well as every other pro- 
eedure which might lead to hypnotism. Such a séance goes 
along like a conversation between two similarly awake persons 
of whom one is relieved of every muscular tension and every 
distracting sense impression, which might disturb the concen- 

™The History of the Psychoanalytic Movement, Sigmund Freud, trans. 


by A. A. Brill, New York, 1917. “Nervous and Mental Disease Mono- 
graph,” Series No. 25, pp. 3, 4. 


FREUD Q57 


tration of the attention upon his own mental affairs. Before he 
proceeds to details, he urges them often, for several sessions, to 
sketch a general picture of their whole illness and most inti- 
mate family and life surroundings, to tell him everything which 
comes into their heads, whether they think it important, irrele- 
vant, or nonsensical. With special emphasis, it is asked of them 
that no thought or association be omitted from the communica- 
tion because this telling might be shameful or painful.’’ 

The method of free association here described is associated 
with the method of dream analysis, of which we have already 
spoken.® 

Freud also thinks that he can interpret various little facts 
-and incidents of the interview as having a definite meaning. 
He speaks of them as symptomatic acts. Thus, if the patient 
comes late or absents himself entirely, it indicates resistance to 
the analysis. Unmotivated laughing betrays the fact that the 
patient sees the truth of the analytic interpretation of his symp- 
toms though he does not confess it, ete. 

After the analysis has proceeded for some time, the physi- 
cian, more or less suddenly, acquires an insight into the meaning 
of the patient’s symptoms. He must not suppose that the 
patient also has made the discovery at the same time. The 
novice’® is inclined to explain the matter to the patient, and 
lay bare the solution of his hysteria. This, however, is a mis- 
take. A skilful psychoanalyst leads the patient on to see the 
solution himself. If you explain to the patient the symptoms 
without his having made the discovery, you do not overcome 
his resistance. The very aim and object of psychoanalysis is to 
overcome this inner resistance (Verdrangung). It is a force, 
8 Freud’s Theories of the Neuroses. Hitschmann, trans. by Payne, 
1921, p. 195. 

°Cf. supra, p. 37. 

10Not only novices apparently do this but some psychoanalysts who 
have long practised the science and have written lengthy works on the sub- 
-ject. I remember one of my patients telling how a certain psychoanalyst, 
after a little analysis, briefly explained her symptoms, and when she did 
not agree with him, shook his fist, and insisted that she must take 
his solution. 


258 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND PSYCHOTHERAPY 


according to Freud, which prevents the patient from seeing him- 
self as he is, and which must be overcome in order to effect a 
cure. At a certain period in the analysis, insight is assisted 
by an explanation of the psychoanalytic theory. This explana- 
tion is exemplified by facts that have come out in the course of 
the analysis, and so the patient is enabled to see the connections 
for himself, and when this is done in typical cases, a cure 
is effected. 

Analysis, however, is not the only factor in bringing about 
a cure. According to Freud, no cure is ever wrought except 
through the mechanism of transfer. The Freudian concept of 
transfer is based upon a theory that underlies all his writings. 
The driving force of human nature is libido. With Freud, this 
is always sexual. The primitive fixation of the lbido is on the 
self, leading to autoeroticism. The second fixation of libido, 
according to Freud, is on individuals of the same sex, and this, 
in normal development, is followed by a heterosexual fixation 
of the libido. 

In spite of these stages in the development of affection, 
Freud also holds that the original fixation of every boy’s affections 
is his mother, and there is an inner hatred and opposition to 
the father. If the mother is dead, someone acts as a surrogate. 
At all events, the original fixation is normally in the family. 
All other affection is the transfer of this original, essentially, 
but not consciously recognized incestuous love. When the pa- 
tient suffers a mental breakdown, develops an hysteria, or some 
other form of psychoneurosis, it is always associated with inade- 
quate fixation of the libido. The physician steps in as the one 
who helps, and help is possible because the original love which 
has no longer a place of fixation is transferred to him. Jn order 
that the treatment may be successful, this transfer must last 
throughout its whole course. Sometimes a successful treatment 
is interrupted by positive transfer being changed into negative, 
that is to say, in common parlance, by affection giving way to 
hatred or dislike. As soon as negative transfer occurs, the power 
of the physician to help is ended, and will not return until the 
advent of a new positive transfer. 


FREUD 259 


With the end of the treatment, the transfer must be broken. 
The physician must cease to be a friend and become as it were 
a stranger to his patient again. When this takes place, the 
patient is free and is no longer dependent upon his doctor. 

Critique of the Freudian Position—Though Freud main- 
tains that psychoanalysis is not psychology, but a method of 
treatment, he not only presents us with a technique of thera- 
peutic procedure, but also demands our assent to fundamentally 
psychological and philosophical concepts. We may ask our- 
selves, therefore, in the first place, whether psychoanalysis is a 
valuable addition to our methods of mental treatment; secondly, 
whether the appanage of psychological and philosophical con- 
-eepts is based upon well-established scientific facts. 

I. Psychoanalysis as a Method.—Mental disorders at the 
present time are usually divided more or less roughly into two 
oreat classes: Organogenic and psychogenic. We perhaps 
owe to Freud, more than we realize, the development of our 
present knowledge of the large class of psychogenic mental dis- 
eases. For before his day, the tendency was certainly to look 
upon everything as some kind of physical disease of the central 
nervous system. Even when nothing definite could be pointed 
out, the assumption was made, though its authors did not realize 
its metaphysical character, that a group of brain cells were not 
funetioning properly. It was, however, impossible to treat these 
brain cells, and the assumption had no therapeutic value what- 
ever. But Freud made us realize that a great many mental dis- 
orders are due to mental factors, and can be treated by the 
proper technique of psychotherapy. This is a great service, and 
one that must not be underestimated. It has, however, led in 
some quarters to an overaccentuation of the mental in the eti- 
ology not only of the psychoses, but also of purely physical con- 
ditions. An example of the extreme tendency is given in the 
following quotation from White: 

‘‘ Aside, however, from the therapeutic attack upon actual 
situations of maladjustment, this concept (of organic inferior- 
ity) is of value in getting at the inner meaning of symptoms, 
bodily as well as mental. Under its guidance, we are inquiring 


260 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND PSYCHOTHERAPY 


for the first time into the meaning of some diseases from the 
point of view of the strivings of the individual as a biological 
unit. Can we, for example, express certain diseases in terms of 
partial libido strivings? ... Can a carcinoma of the stomach 
be understood in terms of nutritional libido? a rectal tabetic 
crisis in terms of anal erotic? a pulmonary tuberculosis in 
terms of respiratory libido? a tumor in terms of muscle libido? 
And so on through the whole category.’’1? 

Whatever may be said of the relation of character and its 
accompanying physical characteristics to various forms of physi- 
cal disorder, it is not likely that the treatment of organic condi- 
tions is going to be aided by any system of subdividing the libido 
into respiratory, nutritional, and other factors. 

Granting the assistance that psychotherapy has given to the 
science of psychiatry, we may ask ourselves whether it cures 
all forms of mental disorder. This question can only be answered 
in the negative. It does not. Some have maintained that what 
it does is to enable us to understand mental disorders and not 
to eure them. However, there can be no doubt that in some 
cases, it does bring about a cure. It cannot, however, be regarded 
as a panacea for all mental difficulties even if we should take 
‘fall’? as referring here to those of psychogenic origin. 

Psychoanalysis has several limitations. First, it is limited 
by the mentality of the patient. No matter what the patient’s 
disorder, he is not a good subject for psychoanalytic treatment 
unless he is of good intellectual ability. The stupid cannot be 
psychoanalyzed. Secondly, psychoanalysis is limited by the time 
factor. According to Freud, you must spend hours every week 
for months before you can work a cure. If this is the case, 
very few patients can be subjected to a psychoanalytic course 
of treatment. And in the third place, it is limited by the 
type of disorder. Not all psychoneuroses are amenable to treat- 
ment. I witnessed the utter failure of psychoanalysis in the 
treatment of the war neuroses, and a little later, I had the pleas- 
ure of seeing and taking part in the suggestive method of therapy 


* Wm. A. White, Mechanisms of Character Formation, New York, 
1916, pp. 266, 267. 


FREUD 261 


which was made use of with such brilliant success in the American 
neurological hospitals in France. 

In my experience, psychoanalysis is of particular value in 
the parataxes of anxiety in civil life. Wherever there has been 
established in the past a pathological association between some 
emotional incident and abnormal behavior, psychoanalysis is 
of distinct help. But where the relation to a complex in the 
past is not so marked, and the conflict of the present is the 
dominating factor, psychoanalysis may help, but it does not 
eure. It is particularly inefficient in the treatment of the manic- 

‘depressive psychoses, but no other treatment of these disorders 
has any distinct advantage over psychoanalysis. 
Mere catharsis in my experience is often inadequate to effect 
acure. It is necessary that one should not only analyze, but, as 
Jung says, one must also synthesize in the sense that he not 
only puts together the fragments of the patient’s past experi- 
ence, but also enables him to work out a harmonious adjustment 
of his inner drives with the problems and opportunities that 
confront him. 

II. Theoretical Questions in Psychoanalysis.—A. The Ori- 
gin of all Neuroses in Childhood.—In my own attempts at psy- 
choanalysis, I have not been able to see for myself every single 
mental disorder traced back to infantile origins. I can say, 
however, that I have found some cases in which this is true. 
The Freudians will maintain that I have not seen the origins 
of all conditions in childhood because of the inadequacy of my 
analyses. This point need not be settled. I would not 
maintain that my analyses have been adequate, but I have found 
that as far as therapeusis is concerned, it is not necessary to 
trace the symptoms back to childhood in order to effect a cure. 
Many of my cases have seemed to have their explanation in 
conflicts of the present, and not of the past. Others have had 
the same experience, and I think it quite lkely that Freud’s 
tendency to generalize has here again obtained the upper hand, 
and his conclusion is not based on sufficient evidence, but is 
really a reaction of his own character. 


262 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND PSYCHOTHERAPY 


B. Reason for the Varying Values of Catharsis—I have 
repeatedly attempted to find out whether or not catharsis, that 
is to say, the unburdening of the past, has any therapeutic value, 
and, as a result of these attempts, I have come to the conclusion 
that in many cases it has some value, particularly in incipient 
conditions. It is very likely that in such cases it relieves tension 
and often prevents a further pathological development. It is 
of particular value when a pathological association is discovered. 
The patient seems to have an insight: Is that what’s been 
troubling me? And understanding the mechanism, he is able 
to control it. Unburdening is often inadequate, however, and 
the reason for this is to be sought in the condition of the patient 
and not, as Jung thought, in the lack of adequate rapport with 
the physician. If the present position of the patient in life is 
an impossible one, it can be readily understood that unburdening 
the past will not clear up the present. In such cases, one must 
not only unburden, but also find a present solution for the 
patient’s difficulties. 

C. Freud’s Concept of the Libido—Freud conceives of the 
libido as essentially sexual, and looks upon the motive of conduct 
in all human activity as a sexual drive. Is it psychologically 
true that the impulses of human life are to be reduced to one? 
The analysis that we have given above of impulsive activity 
brings out the concept that every human ability has associated 
with it a special drive that constitutes a specifies impulse. Thus, 
we have eyes and a curiosity to see, a power to move, and an 
impulse to exercise, ete. The impulse to look can be no more: 
identified with the drive to motor activity than the muscles of 
the body can be confounded with the retina. They are two dif- 
ferent things. If we have multiple impulses, then Freud’s theory 
of the libido is untenable. 

What, now, is to be said of the stages of development of the 
sexual impulse from the narcissistic through the homosexual to 
the heterosexual? I have found no evidence of a universal 
homosexual drive in all individuals, nor ean one conclude from 
the fact that in the first stage of uterine development, all human 
beings are hermaphrodite, that, therefore, in the extrauterine 


FREUD 263 


life ere must be a psychological correlate of the hermaphrodit- 
ism of the embryo. It is true, however, that infants are selfish, 
and that some adults attain to an unselfish type of existence. 
If, therefore, we term the centring of affection upon oneself 
narcissism, all human beings are narcissistic at one period of 
their life and the normal course of development is to pass from 
infantile selfishness on to a realization of the necessity of sacri- 
fice. Narcissism gives way normally to altruism. This is true, 
but it is not essentially Freudian. 

D. Problem of Transfer.—Ilf the Freudian concept of trans- 
fer is correct, human affection must be a continuous living entity, 
never dying and always seeking an object of fixation. The child’s 
first love is his mother. If his mother dies, his love for her does 
not cease to exist. When later on the child loves someone else, 
it is the same love, according to Freud, that he bore his mother 
that has never died, but continues to live, and now fixates itself 
on another person. Is this true? Probably not. Affections, 
feelings, emotions, are no more continuous in our mental life 
than sensations; they come and they go. When a new object 
of affection presents itself, new affections arise; it is not the 
same affection that merely fixates itself on something else. The 
power to love abides, but the continuity of the function does 
not imply the continuity of its act. When the eye looks first 
at one scene, and then at another, it is the same eye, but there 
are two scenes, and two sensations. When a human being loves 
one person and then another, there are two objects and 
two affections. 

According to the Freudians, the Cdipus complex and the 
Electra complex dominate the family life. CUdipus, as is well 
known, killed his father and married his mother. Electra incited 
her brother to kill her mother. And so, according to Freud, 
every son hates his father, and every daughter hates her mother. 
Is this true even as a subconscious condition in the child’s mind? 
I have several times found that it is so. Such facts do not 
allow one to pass from ‘‘sometimes’’ to ‘‘always.’’ There is fre- 
quently a natural jealousy between mother and daughter, and 
a natural hatred between son and father. I doubt, however, 


264 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND PSYCHOTHERAPY | 


that it dominates family relationships and determines the activi- 
ties of children and parents. It is at most a subsidiary factor. 
But, according to Freud, the Cidipus complex is not only the 
dominant factor in family relationships, but is also at the bottom 
of society, morality, and religion. It is a keen and interesting 
speculation and is worthy of being presented here, if only as 
a sample of how psychoanalysts disregard all history and fac- 
tual experiences. 

‘‘The Darwinian conception of the tribal horde,’’ he writes, 
‘*does not, of course, allow for the beginning of totemism. There 
is only a violent, jealous father who keeps all the females for 
himself and drives away the growing sons. This primal state 
of society has nowhere been observed. The most primitive organ- 
ization we know, which to-day is still in force with certain tribes, 
is associations of men consisting of members with equal rights, 
subject to the restrictions of the totemic system, and founded 
on matriarechy, or descent through the mother. Can the one have 
resulted from the other, and how was this possible? 

‘‘By basing our argument upon the celebration of the totem, 
we are in a position to give an answer. One day, the expelled 
brothers joined forces, slew and ate the father, and thus put 
an end to the father horde. Together, they dared and accom- 
plished what would have remained impossible for them singly. 
Perhaps some advance in culture, like the use of a new weapon, 
had given them the feeling of superiority. Of course these 
cannibalistic savages ate their victim. This violent, primal 
father had surely been the envied and feared model for each 
of the brothers. Now they accomplished their identification with 
him and each acquired a part of his strength. The totem feast, 
which is perhaps mankind ’s first celebration, would be the repe- 
tition and commemoration of this memorable, criminal act with 
which so many things began, social organization, moral restric- 
tions, and religion.’’?” 

Goldenweiser, an experienced anthropologist, has subjected 
Freud’s theory to the following criticisms: 

(1) ‘‘Totemie sacrifice is a phenomenon practically unknown 
to ethnologists.’’ 


FREUD 265 


(2) ‘‘The idea of a primitive Cyclopean family is itself 
a figment.”’ 

(3) ‘<The eating of the father by the patricidal brothers is 
a notion which doubtless would have met with derision in the 
aboriginal fraternity itself. . . There has been some ceremonial 
eating of man, victims, as in Polynesia, of a war raid; here and 
there, human flesh was used in eases of severe famines. But 
we do not hear of the eating of relatives.’’ 

(4) ‘‘Suppose the original tragedy, the patricidal act of 
the brothers, had actually taken place with all the immediate 
psychological consequences assumed by Freud. But by what 
means can these facts be brought into relation with those sub- 
sequent historic phenomena of society, religion, morality, and 
art, the root of all of which Freud points to in that ancient enact- 
ment of the Gidipus complex in a tragic social setting ?’’?® 

The capital sin of psychoanalysis, after all, is the neglect of 
the historical and the ignoring of empirical investigation. This 
baneful influence has disseminated itself throughout a consider- 
able number of psychiatrical investigations. But psychiatry 
can never become a science until it is willing to subject its facts 
to critical investigation, and when this is done, much of the 
psychoanalytic theorizing will be recognized as ingenious but 
unwarranted speculation. Freud’s answer to the question raised 
by Goldenweiser is the mass psyche. ‘‘It can hardly have 
escaped anyone that we base everything upon the assumption 
of a psyche of the mass in which psychic processes occur as in 
the psychic life of the individual. Moreover, we let the sense 
of guilt for a deed survive thousands of years, remaining effec- 
tive in generations which could have known nothing of the deed. 

‘“ Without the assumption of a mass psyche, or a continuity in 
the emotional life of mankind which permits us to disregard 
the interruptions of psychie acts through the transgression of 
individuals, social psychology could not exist at all.’’!* 

A consideration of the concept of the mass psyche is best 
deferred until after we take up a study of the psychoanalytic 
theories of Jung. 

3 A. A. Goldenweiser, Early Civilization, New York, 1921, pp. 396-97. 

“Totem and Taboo, pp. 259, 260. 

18 


CHAPTER II 
JUNG 


CaRL Gustav JUNG was originally a disciple of Freud, and 
learned psychoanalysis from the master. In fact, Freud was 
so impressed by his young disciple that, as he tells us in his 
History of Psychoanalysis, he wished to make him the head 
of the psychoanalytic movement, and to retire himself from 
the active leadership. Jung, however, was more than a disciple. 
He was an original thinker, developed theories of his own, 
and opened up a channel for a new stream of psychoana- 
lytic conceptions. | 

About the time that Jung associated himself with the move- 
ment, a distinguished psychiatrist, Bleuler, became interested 
in psychoanalysis. Jung and Bleuler extended the field of psy- 
choanalytic interpretation and therapy. Freud himself dealt 
at first with those minor forms of mental disorder known as the 
psychoneuroses, and particularly with hysteria. Jung and 
Bleuler attempted to interpret the major psychoses and treat 
them by means of the new concepts and principles of therapy. 
This led, very soon, to a disagreement with Freud. Freud 
wished to regard everything as due to purely mental causes. 
Bleuler and Jung recognized in the etiology of dementia precox, 
for instance, not only a psychogenic, but also a toxie factor. 
According to Jung, if there is no toxic or organic factor, demen- 
tia precox cannot be distinguished from hysteria, for then each 
disorder would have the same etiology, and if the same etiology, 
why not the same course and symptoms? 

Concept of Libido.—This is not the only difference that de- 
veloped between Jung and Freud. Jung formulated a very dif- 
ferent concept of the libido. With Freud, the libido drive is 
always fundamentally sexual. With Jung, the libido is to be 
compared with energy. In itself, libido is not essentially any 
particular type of impulsive drive, any more than energy is 
either light, sound, heat, electricity, or gravity. Libido is a 

266 


JUNG 267 


universal force, manifesting itself in various ways under 
various circumstances. 

‘*A fleeting glance at the history of evolution is sufficient to 
teach us that countless complicated functions to which to-day 
must be denied any sexual character, were originally pure deri- 
vations from the general impulse of propagation. During the 
ascent through the animal kingdom, an important displacement 
in the fundamentals of the procreative instinct has taken place. 
The mass of the reproductive products, with the uncertainty 
of fertilization, has more and more been replaced by a controlled 
impregnation and an effective protection of offspring. In this 
way, part of the energy required in the production of eggs and 
sperma has been transposed into the creation of mechanisms for 
allurement and for protection of the young. Thus, we discover 
the first instincts of art in animals used in the service of the 
impulse of procreation, and limited to the breeding season. The 
original sexual character of these biological institutions became 
lost in their organic fixation and functional independence. 
Iiven if there can be no doubt about the sexual origin of music, 
still it would be a poor unesthetic generalization, if one were to 
include music in the category of sexuality. A similar nomen- 
clature would lead us to classify the cathedral of Cologne as 
mineralogy because it is built of stones. It can be a surprise 
only to those to whom the history of evolution is unknown to 
find how few things there are really in human life which can- 
not be reduced in the last analysis to the instinct of procreation. 
It includes very nearly everything, I think, which is beloved and 
dear to us. We spoke just now of libido as the creative impulse, 
and at the same time we allied ourselves with the conception 
which opposes libido to hunger in the same way that the instinct 
of the preservation of the species is opposed to the instinct of 
self-preservation. In nature, this artificial distinction does not 
exist. Here we see only a continuous life impulse, a will to live 
which will attain the creation of the whole species through the 
preservation of the individual.’” 


* Jung, C. G., Psychology of the Unconscious, trans. by B. M. Hinkle, 
1921, p. 80. 


268 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND PSYCHOTHERAPY 


The Collective Psyche.—Libido is the vital force of the 
organism. It is also the vital force of the world, the collective 
psyche from which individuals are differentiated and budded off 
in the course of evolution. It thus bears a resemblance to the pan- 
theistic concept of divinity. The existence of a collective psyche 
really follows from the assumption of a universal libido. Jung, 
however, when he sought to find a reason for it, attempted to 
prove its existence from the fact that all men have a similar 
central nervous system which must have everywhere a similar 
function. He then concluded that back of the ‘‘collective func- 
tion’’ there must be a collective psyche. 

‘‘The universal resemblance of brains leads us then to admit 
the existence of a certain psychic function identical in itself 
in all individuals. We shall call it the collective psyche. It 
deserves to be divided into two factors: The collective spirit and 
the collective soul.’’ (In a footnote, Jung says: ‘‘By collective 
spirit, I understand the fact of collective thinking, by the collec- 
tive soul, the fact of the collective feeling, and by the collective 
psyche, the ensemble of the collective psychological function.’’) 
‘‘Insofar as there exist differences corresponding to race, tribe, 
and family, there exists also a collective psyche limited to 
race, tribe, and family, and whose plane is higher than that of the 
collective ‘universal psyche.’ ’” 

The Unconscious.—This concept of the libido led to a rejec- 
tion of Freud’s concept of the unconscious, and its replacement 
by another. According to Freud, the unconscious contains those 
elements and only those that have sometimes been a part of the 
personal consciousness but were suppressed by educational and 
various environmental influences. It harbors nothing but what 
was at one time a personal experience of the individual. But 
according to Jung, ‘‘it comprehends not only suppressed ele- 
ments, but also all the psychic elements which have not attained 
the level of consciousness.’ ”* 

? Jung, C. G., “ La Structure de l’Inconscient,” Archives de Psychologie, 
1915, XV, p. 158. 


* Freud seems to have modified this concept in his Totem and Taboo. 
* Loc. cit., p. 153. 


JUNG 269 


What are these elements that have not attained the level of 
consciousness? They are the various activities of the collective 
psyche. The individual, therefore, has among his psychic ele- 
ments not only personal experiences, but also activities that are 
common to all the races of the earth that now exist or ever have 
existed. These activities are not personal nor in the strict sense 
of the word inherited, but are the workings of the pantheistic 
libido that dominates everything, and drives individuals and 
the race to ends of which they are unconscious and to a goal that 
remains unseen. 

The Individual.—Is there any place for the individual in 
the philosophy and psychology of Jung? Yes. The individual 
is a principle that is opposed to the collective psyche, and it is 
from a conflict between the individual and the collective psyche 
that the psychosis finds its origin. ‘‘ The individual is made mani- 
fest partially as a principle which decides on the choice and as- 
signs the limits of the elements adopted (from the collective 
psyche) as personal. 

‘‘The individual is the principle which renders possible, and 
forces, if necessary, a progressive differentiation of the collec- 
tive psyche. The individual is made manifest partially as an 
obstacle to collective production and as a resistance to collective 
thought and feelings.’”® 

The psychosis is a regression of the individual back towards 
the primitive stage of the collective psyche. Ontogeny, accord- 
ing to Jung, is the recapitulation of phylogeny, not only in 
embryology, but also in the mental development of the individual. 
Furthermore, the mind, in becoming insane, retraces in reverse 
order the stages of development of the race.° 

Regression.—Regression with Jung means much more than 
with Freud. According to Freud, the individual regresses to the 
infantile level. According to Jung, the regression is not only to 
the infantile level, but also to the primitive stages of the phylo- 


5 Loc. cit., p. 128. 
° Of. Psychology of the Unconscious, ut supra, p. 14. 





270 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND PSYCHOTHERAPY 


genic levels of our mental life. And yet there is an analogy 
between Freud and Jung. The child’s life is like that of the 
savage because of the principle that ontogeny is the recapitula- 
tion of phylogeny. 

Freud attributes the modifications that Jung introduced into 
psychoanalytic theory to a desire to get rid of the objectionable 
features of psychoanalysis. ‘‘All the changes which Jung has 
perpetrated upon psychoanalysis originated in the intention of 
setting aside all that is objectionable in the family complexes, 
in order that these objectionable features may not be found 
again in religion and ethics. The sexual libido was replaced by 
an abstract idea of which it may be said that it remained equally 
mysterious and incomprehensible alike to fools and to the wise. 
The Cidipus complex, we are told, has only a ‘symbolical’ 
sense, the mother therein representing the unattainable which 
must be renounced in the interests of cultural development. 
The father who is killed in the Gidipus myth represents the 
inner drive from whose influence we must free ourselves in 
order to become independent. . . In place of the conflict between 
erotic strivings adverse to the Ego and the self-assertions, we 
are given the conflict between the ‘life-task’ and the ‘psychic 
laziness.” The neurotic guilty conscience corresponds with the 
reproach of not having put to good account one’s life-task.’” 

Freud is evidently chagrined at the independent attitude 
of his disciple. There seems to be no real evidence that Jung 
is trying to render psychoanalysis less offensive to pious ears, 
for, as a matter of fact, although theoretically, he accentuates 
the non-sexual character of the libido, he is continually nosing 
around for sexual interpretations, and seems to be peculiarly 
delighted when he thinks he has found them. As far as his 
analyses are concerned, his acts belie his words, and, apparently, 
he is never satisfied until he has found a sexual interpretation 
of the phenomena he is studying. 

Therapeutic Procedure.—The result of Jung’s revolt from 
Freud was a difference in therapeutic procedure, far more fun- 
"History of the Psychoanalytic Movement, p. 64... | 


JUNG 271 


damental than his addition of the method of investigating the 
unconscious by the association experiment, to the technique 
of analysis.® 

In an article in the British Journal of Psychology,’ Jung 
has given us an outline of his therapeutic philosophy and pro- 
cedure. He starts with the concept of the psychic trauma as did 
Breuer and Freud. The psychic trauma, sometimes spoken of 
as an emotionally toned incident, or the mental shock, hes at the 
basis of the psychoneurosis, according to Jung, and is effective, 
not because it 1s a shock, but because it leads to a dissociation of 
a certain element of the mental life from the remainder of the 
personality. By this he means that there is some incident shut 


out from the patient’s mind that he does not call up by asso- 


ciative memory, and which he does not, perhaps will not, con- 
sciously contemplate. Here Jung and Janet are in agreement. 
The question now arises: How does it happen that ‘‘cathar- 
sis,’’ that is to say, the mere conscious recall of the incident and 
living through it in detail, cures the patient at times, and at 
other times does not? According to Jung, rehearsing the experi- 
ence is of no value in itself. When it is of value, it helps because 
it establishes a relationship between the personality of the pa- 
tient and the physician. The physician, by his presence, lends 
a special aid to the patient, and it is this help which enables 
him to face the complex and overcome the neurosis. ‘‘The 
rehearsed experience of the traumatic moment can reintegrate 
the neurotic dissociation only when the conscious personality of 
the patient is so far reénforced by the relationship to the physi- 
cian that he is consciously able to bring the complex that has 
become autonomous, once more under the control of the will.’’?° 
The therapeutic value of analysis does not lie, as Freud 
thought originally, in the uncovering of anything. The analy- 
sis places the patient en rapport with the physician, and enables 
the physician to understand the patient and by the insight so 
® Cf. supra, p. 38. . 
* British Journal of Psychology, Medical Section, 1921, II, pp. 13-22. 


“The Question of the Therapeutic Value of Abreaction,” C. G. Jung. 
* Loc. ctt., p. 16. 


272 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND PSYCHOTHERAPY 


acquired to lead him on to a synthesis of the discordant forces 
in his psyche. 

Both Jung and Freud accentuate the importance of trans- 
fer. But here again Jung’s concept differs from that of Freud. 
‘‘The phenomenon of transfer is inevitable in every fundamen- 
tal analysis, for it is absolutely imperative that the physician 
should get into close touch with his patient’s path of psycho- 
logical development. Thus only can the physician take into him- 
self the psychological contents of the patient so that his reac- 
tions gain an effective contact. One could say that in the same 
measure as the doctor receives into himself the intimate material 
of the patient, he himself enters as a figure into the psyche of the 
patient. I say ‘as a figure,’ by which I mean, that at first he 
is seen by the patient not at all as he is, but, more or less, he 
takes on the role of those individuals who held significance in 
the patient’s previous history. The physician becomes asso- 
ciated in the patient’s psyche with those memory-images because 
he makes him divulge all his most intimate material. He becomes 
burdened by these images.” 

With Freud, the physician is a passive object of transfer. 
The patient is grasping for something on which to hold. It 
is necessary that his affections should find some place of rest 
and the physician becomes the passive object of affection. But, 
according to Jung, the physician must do more than merely be 
an object of fixation. He must actively lead the patient on 
to a solution of his difficulties. Freud is more mechanical. 
Analyze, uncover complexes, present an object of transfer and 
let the inner drives of the patient work out their own solution. 
But, according to Jung, the physician must not only analyze, 
he must also synthesize. 

‘‘The psychological treatment must not only destroy an old, 
morbid attitude, it must also build up a new, sound attitude. 
But for this a reversal of vision is needed. Not only shall the 
patient see from what beginnings his neurosis arose, he shall also 
be able to see towards what justifiable aims his psychological 
tendencies are striving. One cannot, as though it were a foreign 

* Loc. cit., p- 20. 


JUNG Q73 


body, simply extract the morbid element, lest one remove with 
it an essential piece which, after all, is destined to be lived with. 
This piece must not be weeded out, but must be transformed till 
it attains that form which can be included in a way that is 
meaningful to the whole of the human psyche.’’?” 

The physician must be careful to work out a synthesis, that 
is, In accordance with the indwiduality of his patient. His own 
syntheses and sublimations are not to be imposed upon others. 
Where and how is he to find the ideal goal that is in harmony 
with the specific character of his patient? Jung’s theory of 
the dream leads him on to the solution of this problem, and here 
again he differs fundamentally from his master. With Freud, 
the dream is merely a safety valve for suppressed desires. It 
looks to the past and not to the future; but with Jung, and also 
Maeder, the dream is a constructive synthesis. It reveals the 
end at which the patient unconsciously aims. Its interpretation, 
therefore, will give the ideal solution capable of fully satisfying 
the hidden forces in the personality of the dreamer. There- 
fore, dream analysis is important, according to Jung, not only 
in analysis, but also in synthesis. 

Freud criticises Jung’s attempts to lead the patient on to 
sublimation as unscientific, and maintains that they reduce psy- 
chotherapy to the level of pastoral advice. He quotes the com- 
plaints of one of Jung’s patients who came to him after being 
unsuccessfully treated by his refractory disciple. ‘‘ Instead 
of freeing me analytically, each session made new and tremen- 
dous demands on me, on the fulfilment of which the overcoming 
of the neurosis was supposed to depend. Some of these demands 
were: Inner concentration by means of introversion, religious 
meditation, living together with my wife in loving devotion, 
ete. It was almost beyond my power, since it really amounted 
to a radical transformation of the whole spiritual man. I left 
the analysis as a poor sinner with the strongest feelings of 
contrition and the very best resolutions, but at the same time, 
with the deepest discouragement. All that this physician recom- 


2 Toc. cit., p. 22. 


274 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND PSYCHOTHERAPY 


mended, any pastor would have advised, but where was I to get 
the strength ?’’!8 

Freud’s criticism, however, is perhaps unjust. Patients are 
often unable to work out a solution for themselves. A full 
understanding of the difficulties does not work the miracle of ° 
acure. It is only when they find a satisfactory solution to the 
problems that confront them and an outlet for the driving forces 
of human nature, that is fully satisfactory, that the baneful 
efforts of their mental malady commence to dwindle. Whatever 
may be said in criticism of Jung, his work is to be looked upon » 
as a distinct advance upon that of his master. 


CRITIQUE OF JUNG 


Jung’s therapy is an essential improvement on that of Freud. 
If Freud had only been content with having developed the 
analytic side of psychotherapy and then recognized the contri- 
butions of his disciples, he would have found much of value 
in the work of Jung. But there runs throughout his writings 
an evident tendency to set himself up as the peerless master 
whose dictum must be accepted not only as true but also as 
complete. His writings indicate, particularly his History of 
the Psychoanalytic Movement, that he has a conviction that he 
has discovered everything of value in psychotherapy, and there 
ean be nothing added to his doctrine. Others have simply to 
live in his shadow and practise his principles, but they ean add 
nothing new. 

Freud gave us the sacentials of the analytic technique. Jung 
attempted to insist upon the necessity of helping the patient 
in his efforts at sublimation. Though he has not given us as 
adequate a technique for synthesis as Freud has given us for 
analysis, he has recognized the fact of the necessity of this syn- 
thesis. His philosophical concepts are not as valuable as his 
therapeutic outlook. 

Jung’s Concept of the Libido.—Can the libido be conceived 
of as a unit force? Yes, if the unit force is confined to the 
organism, and if it is conceived of as the psyche or the entelechy 

Ait History ‘of ‘the Psychoanalytic Movement, p. 55. 











JUNG 275 


or individual soul, that can seek happiness in many ways, and 
has many powers and faciu:ties to be satisfied; but this concept 
supposes a metaphysical substance and is something very dif- 
ferent from energy and its transformations. 

Can the libido be conceived of as a world-soul? Jung himself 
recoiled from the full meaning of this concept in his article, ‘‘ La 
Structure de 1’Inconscient,’’ when he contemplated the indi- 
viduality of the body. There are multiple organisms in the 
world, and how ean they be conceived of as constituting any 
real unity? Society, after all, has no existence apart from the 
individuals that compose it. Public opinion has no reality ex- 
cept in the minds of individuals. It is, however, not quite clear 
that Jung conceives of the collective psyche as a being apart, 
although in my exposition I have given this concept as the only 
logical one to be deduced from his writings. He never speaks 
of the collective psyche as an entity, but always as a function. 
Can it be that in some way society functions as a psyche, and 
transmits from generation to generation the concepts of indi- 
viduals, not by social processes, such as books and conversation, 
but by something wholly apart from the concrete realities of 
the environment? This seems to be Freud’s concept of the mass 
psyche. Goldenweiser subjects it to the following criticism, 
which will hold also if Jung conceives of the psyche as an heredi- 
tary principle in the life of the race. 

‘‘Mreud does not utilize tradition, ‘social inheritance,’ as 
the link between the generations. What link then does he 
assume? That of a racial unconscious, propagated by inheri- 
tance from generation to generation, and enriched on its way 
by the psychological and cultural experiences of its temporary 
human carriers. In this mechanism, which is but a revival of 
the theory of the inheritance of acquired characters, lies the 
dynamic principle of the racial unconscious, and with it stands 
or falls most of what psychoanalysts have contributed to the 
interpretation of social. science. 

‘‘But modern biology turns a deaf ear to the claims of use 
inheritanee. In the light of what the biologist knows, and does 
not know, this alleged process is nought but ‘inheritance by 


276 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND PSYCHOTHERAPY: 


magic’ to use Kroeber’s phrase. For all we know or ean con- 
vineingly assume, the generation receives nothing from its pre- 
cursor beyond the general psychophysical inheritance of the race, 
plus the accumulated civilizational possessions acquired through 
education and the other channels of cultural transfer.’’ 

Jung’s Concept of Ontogeny and Phylogeny in Relation 
to Mental Disorders.—The basis for the comparison between 
ontogeny and phylogeny is found in embryology. Thus, for 
instance, the original stage of the brain is that of a vesicle with 
three compartments. <A brain of this kind is found in certain 
lower organisms. The brain then undergoes a course of develop- 
ment in which, at various stages, it resembles more or less roughly 
the form of the cerebrum in animals at different levels of organi- 
zation. Again, every human being has at one period of his em- 
bryonic development, the gill slits characteristic of fish, and the 
branching of arteries in the neck required by the gill slits in 
fishes. Again, the kidney undergoes not a continuous develop- 
ment, but a discrete one in which first one and then another 
secretory apparatus is developed and discarded until one comes 
to the final form of the human kidney. 

On these facts one of the common arguments for evolution 
is based. If a human being goes through a series of stages char- 
acteristic of lower organisms, he must, in the history of the 
world, have ascended through all of these stages. It is a very 
suggestive fact, but by no means a conclusive argument. The 
law of recapitulation is one explanation, but it is not the only 
conceivable one. The embryological argument is one of the 
weaker ones for the theory of evolution. The argument affords 
a still more slender support when one draws from it the fur- 
ther conclusion that the mind of man in its ontogenetic devel- 
opment must also recapitulate the mental development of the 
race. There are no facts in the mental development of the 
child that correspond to the well-tested facts of embryology, 
and, furthermore, very little is known of the evolution of the 
race. Freud supposes that the most primitive race is that of 
the Australians with their highly developed totemism and 


JUNG 277 


peculiar forms of symbolic thinking, but, as a matter of fact, 
it is very likely that Wundt is right when he and many anthro- 
pologists point out such people as the Pygmies, the Tasmanians, 
the Andaman Islanders, the Vedas, the Negritos, as more primi- 
tive. When we study these primitive peoples, we are very much 
surprised to find that we get further and further away from 
the realization of the evolutionary concept of the primitive 
horde. For primitive man is very much like ourselves. He is 
a monogamist and a monotheist and has principles of morality, 
and complexity of language that make it very hard for us to 
see how he is related to a primitive horde of beasts. Jung, how- 
ever, maintains that the concepts of phylogeny and ontogeny 
lead us back to a stage in which man was very different from 
ourselves. His very type of thought was different. It was not 
logical, but symbolic thought. The archaic type of thinking 
was similar to the flow of thought in dream-lfe. 

‘‘All this experience suggests to us that we draw a parallel 
between the phantastical, mythological thinking of antiquity 
and the similar thinking of children; between the lower human 
races and dreams. This train of thought is not strange to us, 
but quite familiar, through our knowledge of comparative anat- 
omy and the history of development, which show us how the 
structure and function of the human body are the results of a 
series of embryonic changes which correspond to similar changes 
in the history of the race. Therefore, the supposition is justified 
that ontogenesis corresponds in psychology to phylogenesis. Con- 
sequently, it would be true, as well, that the state of infantile 
thinking in the child’s psychic life, as well as in dreams, is 
nothing but a reécho of the prehistoric and ancient.’’"* 

Is it true that symbolic thought phylogenetically antedated 
logical thought? This cannot conceivably be the case, and noth- 
ing in the history of primitive people demands that it should 
be. Both types of thought are as old as the race. If primitive 
man thought in symbolic terms, we do also in our poetry at the 
present day, and if we argue and dispute in logical terms, primi- 
tive man did also by insight into ends and adopting means by 

* Jung, Psychology of the Unconscious, p. 14. 


278 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND PSYCHOTHERAPY 


which they were to be attained. The relics that we have of his 
tools, his instruments of war and of the chase show us that as: 
far back as men sought food in order to live, so far may be traced. 
our logical manner of thinking. True, it is that his archaic 
thought was often mixed with the symbols of superstition. Thus, 
for instance, when he placed a feather on the end of his arrow, 
the original reason may have been to lend magic speed to its 
flight, and he had no insight into the mechanical value of the 
feather in stabilizing the flight of the arrow. But his conclu- 
sion in this matter and similar conclusions were perhaps per- 
fectly logical when we consider the principles that constituted 
the premises of primitiveman. He differed from us not so much 
in his mode of thought as in his principles. 

Concept of the Psychosis as a Regression.—Can we now 
look upon the psychosis as a regression to the stage of primitive 
man? When we consider how slender the evidence on which 
the theory of recapitulation is based we cannot place any great 
faith in its ability to guide us through the maze of the psychoses. 
The stages of development of the race are not clear. To be 
perfectly honest, we must say that we know very little about 
them. The data on which psychoanalytic interpretations are 
based are often faulty. Goldenweiser has pointed this out, and 
no anthropologist would rely upon many of the facts Jung and 
Freud have taken as the basis of their psychology. If we do 
not know the stages of the development of the human race, it 
will not help us in our psychotherapy to maintain that the psy- 
chosis is a regression to the unknown stages, and it is by no 
means clear that it is. 


CHAPTER III 


ADLER 


Alfred Adler and the Neurotic Constitution—~Adler is 

another of the students of Freud who broke away from the prin- 
ciples of the master in order that he might work out an inde- 
pendent system. The theory he developed is very ingenious, 
and applies in its general outline to a certain number of 
eases. It introduces us to very interesting mechanisms and is, 
therefore, important. 
- According to Adler, many of the diseases of the organism 
are due to the existence of inferior organs. These organs become 
infected because they are hereditarily deficient in vitality. It 
seems at first sight that it is a matter of pure chance why an 
organ becomes infected or is wounded by a blow from without. 
But, according to Adler, the reason is to be sought in the inferi- 
ority of the organ and not in the vagaries of chance. 

He points out, for example, that a boy sustained an injury 
to his left eyeball from the pen of a school companion in August, 
1905. In October, 1905, the same left eye was injured by a 
splinter, and in January, 1906, the same eye was again injured 
by a pen prick. The maternal grandfather of the boy had an 
iritis of diabetic origin. His mother and a younger brother 
both had convergent strabismus, hypermetropia, and ambly- 
opia. His mother’s brother had convergent strabismus, and 
often a conjunctival eczema. The patient had full acuteness of 
vision, slight hypermetropia, and lack of conjunctival reflex in 
both eyes. Adler regards the boy’s defects as due to hereditary 
organ-inferiority. The whole optical apparatus was inferior and 
could not protect itself against injury from without. It was 
inferior, too, because of heredity. 

He cites many such cases to bring out his point, and main- 
tains that the inferiority of an organ may reveal itself in the 
descendants in the most diverse parts of the organ. Thus, for 

279 


280 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND PSYCHOTHERAPY 


instance, in the ascendants, the respiratory system may be infe- 
rior and manifest the inferiority in the nasal passages, but in the 
descendants, the inferiority may be manifested in the lungs. 

There ean be no organ-inferiority without accompanying 
inferiority of the sex apparatus, for the organ-inferiority is 
inherited through the sex cells, which must, therefore, be imper- 
fect. Not only this, but ‘‘every organ-inferiority carries its 
heredity through and makes itself felt by reason of an accom- 
panying inferiority in the sexual apparatus.’” 

Given an inferior organ, it must compensate for its inferior 
structure by increased activity. The classical example of this is 
hypertrophy of the heart in valvular disease. The compensa- 
tion does not stop at mere adequacy, but transcends the limits 
of bare sufficiency. Over-compensation and not merely com- 
pensation is always the result of organ-inferilority. 

The nervous system plays the main part in this over-com- 
pensation. This takes place in two ways: 

(a) By organic reflexes. The heart, for example, cannot 
help but hypertrophy if a valve leaks. Reflexes from the vas- 
cular system bring on an overactivity of the heart muscle which 
leads, as in all muscles, to hypertrophy. 

(b) Not only organic but psychic factors are involved. At 
first, there is a particular interest manifested in protecting the 
inferior organ and later on a peculiar drive to show the excel- 
lence of the organ by making it work harder than necessary, 
and taking delight in the satisfaction derived from the result- 
ant triumph. 

Organ-inferiority is not merely a physical matter. The 
physical condition leads to an ensemble of phenomena that are 
reflected on the psyche in such a manner that the resultant 
superstructure has a peculiar characteristic impression that 
gives the basis for, and coloring to, the mental disorder that 
may be derived from the original organ-inferiority. 





1Alfred Adler, A Study of Organ-inferiority in its Physical Com- 
pensations. ‘ Nervous and Mental Disease Monograph,” Series No. 24, New 
York, 1917, p. 53. Cf. also his work, The Neurotic Constitution, New York, 
1917, pp. xxiii + 456. 


ADLER 281 


Adler goes so far as to suggest that the foundation of all 
ability is in disability. Genius, he looks upon as an over-com- 
pensation in an inferior brain. Demosthenes became a great 
orator because he over-compensated his stuttering. Mozart had 
defective ears, Beethoven, otosclerosis; Bruckner’s ears were 
stigmatized by a nevus. Organ-inferiority makes for special 
ability because it is a source of a feeling of inferiority which 
spurs one to get rid of it by the will to power, or what Adler 
terms the ‘‘maseuline protest’’: ‘‘I must act as though I 
were a complete man.’’ Thus, the feeling of inferiority is iden- 
tified with effeminacy. The compensating pressure from the 
psychie superstructure impels the patient to make sure that he 
is going to play a manly role. The meaning of the resultant 
neurosis, therefore, assumes the form of the antithetical but 
fundamental thought: ‘‘I am a woman, and will be a man.”’ 

All of this leads to the formulation of the plan of life. The 
patient is a weakling. He, therefore, compensates for the con- 
sciousness of his defects by a fiction that elevates his personal 
estimation. The fiction has no real foundation. The feeling of 
superiority which it produces is not based on actual accomplish- 
ment. It is the will to seem, and the neurotic lives under the 
hypnotic influence of an imaginary plan of life or guiding 
fiction which cannot be told to others. Manifestation of it 
would lead to ridicule. It is, therefore, suppressed and_ be- 
comes unconscious. 

The guiding fiction does not remain the only plan of life. 
It cannot be lived out, and a plan must be developed that can 
be. There is, therefore, produced an ‘‘antifiction’’ which assumes 
the role of the guide of outward conduct. 

‘“‘In the contrary fiction, there are active experiences, and 
education, social and cultural formulas, and the traditions of 
society. In times of good humor, of security, of normal condi- 
tions, of peace, this is the prevailing form, which causes a re- 
straint of the combative predisposition and effects an adaptation 
of the traits of character to the environment. Should the 
insecurity increase and the consciousness of inferiority emerge, 
then the contrary-fiction is deprived of value because of an 

19 


282 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND PSYCHOTHERAPY 


increasing abstraction from reality, the dexterities become 
mobilized, the nervous dogmatic character asserts itself and 
with it the exaggerated sense of ego-ideal. It is one of the 
triumphs of human wit to put through the guiding fiction by 
adapting it to the antifiction, to shine through modesty, to 
eonquer by humility and submissiveness, to humiliate others 
by one’s virtues, to attack others by one’s own suffering, to 
strive to attain the goal of manly force by effeminate means, 
to make oneself small in order to appear great. Of such sort, 
however, are the expedients of neuroties.’” 

If the antifiction is forced completely into the background, 
and the individual gives himself up wholly to the vagaries of 
the fiction with its bizarre withdrawal from reality, we have the 
abnormal behavior of a mental breakdown. © 

Critical Estimate of Adler’s Theory.—It is evident that the 
basis of Adler’s view of mental disorders is his discussion of 
the existence of inferior organs. But his whole treatment of the 
existence of such organs and their heredity offends against 
the sound criteria of empirical science. The various claims in the 
study of organ-inferiority should have been made the object 
of careful statistical investigation. Terms should have been 
clarified, and attempts made to compare the theory with the 
facts. But there is not the slightest sign of any endeavor to 
work out correlation as Karl Pearson has done, or to estab- 
lish conformity of offspring to the probable expectation of 
Mendel’s laws. 

As we said in discussing above’ the plan of life, Adler merely 
cites in proof of his theory a few incidents of the association 
of genius with some kind of specific inferiority that corresponds 
to the special type of ability, but if Adler’s theory were sound, 
all musicians, for example, should have some kind of inferior 
ears, or at least aural defects should be more common in the 
musical than in the non-musical. This could easily be determined 
if it were so, but in all probability it is not. 


2Loc. ctt., pp. 81, 82. 
*Cf. supra, p. 177 ff. 


ADLER 283 


But leaving aside the substructure of Adler’s theory, and it 
may really be disregarded as wholly superfluous, we may ask 
whether an inferior organ ever leads to a feeling of inferiority, 
and is such a feeling ever a source of abnormal behavior. Both 
questions are to be answered in the affirmative, as many 
cases prove.* Adler has found, not the universal, but only an 
occasional factor in the etiology of abnormal reactions. He has 
also pointed out the great value of the plan of life in directing 
the conduct of the individual.® He has not only done this, but 
has also taught us to look for a double plan of life, and has 
made us realize, in some cases at least, that psychoneurosis is the 
resultant of a conflict between two plans of life, one conscious, 
and the other unconscious. This is probably only a new formula- 
tion of the old doctrine of the two selves, and a poetic recognition 
of the fact that we have two groups of emotions with which are 
associated two sets of impulses, desires, and ideals. 

*Cf. the case cited above, p. 246. 

* For an insight into the influence of the plan of life on the production 
of a poetic genius see Percy Bysshe Shelley, an Introduction to the Study 


of Character, by T. V. Moore. Psychological Studies from the Catholic 
University of America. Phychological Monographs, Vol. XXXI, No. 2. 


CHAPTER IV 


THE PSYCHOPATHOLOGY AND PSYCHOTHERAPY 
OF ADOLF MEYER 


WE Now turn to the study of a psychiatrist whom Freud 
would not look upon as a psychoanalyst in the narrow sense of 
the term used in his History of the Psychoanalytic Movement. 
In fact, that work seems to have been written to prove that only 
strict Freudians have a right to claim that they are practis- 
ing psychoanalysis. 

Psychoanalysis may, however, be taken in the much wider 
sense of any scientific attempt to discover the mental roots 
of a patient’s disordered condition. In that sense, Adolf Meyer 
is a psychoanalyst, and the science owes much to his researches. 

His writings are characterized by a sane moderation, and 
are full of valuable therapeutic suggestions. A review of his 
work is, therefore, of value not only theoretically, but for the 
practical purposes of mental treatment. 

Types of Constitution.—The insistence upon an understand- 
ing of the individual as a living personality is the dominant 
note in Professor Meyer’s psychiatrical work. To understand 
the personality we must be able to distinguish various types 
of individuals. | 

It has too often happened that instead of studying individu- 
als the student of psychiatry has given attention to the dis- 
eases of the mind. He rests content when a diagnosis ean be 
made and the patient may be classified in some schema of dis- 
ease entities. His eye is open for symptoms. He attempts to 
make the case fit previous standards and fails to notice important 
factors in the development of the disorder. Thus, he classifies 
but does not explain. He gives a name to his patient’s condi- 
tion and ties his hands so that therapy is impossible. 

Professor Meyer takes a different point of view. He even 
calls in question the concepts of disease entities in psychiatry, 

284 


PSYCHOPATHOLOGY AND PSYCHOTHERAPY 285 


and maintains that we have only types of individuals reacting 
to their environment in certain characteristic ways." 

The matter of prime importance for the psychiatrist, there- 
fore, is to understand these types of individuals and their 
characteristic ways of reacting to the difficulties of life. The 
pathological types of constitution may be named and classified 
very much in the same way as psychiatry has treated its disease 
entities. This analysis of the pathological character Meyer has 
given us in a study entitled ‘‘An Attempt at Analysis of the 
Neurotic Constitution.’’? In this article he distinguishes the 
following types: 

1. The Psychasthenic Type. In the sense of Janet, 7.¢., the 
individual with manias, phobias, scruples, ete. 

2. The Neurasthenic Type. The individual who is quickly 
fatigued and easily irritated. 

3. Hypochondriasis, usually built on a feeling of ill-health 
which leads to self-observation and explanation. 

4. The Hysterical Constitution. The emotional individual 
who simulates illness, or exaggerates real difficulties; who craves 
attention and contrives to bring his sickness into prominence in 
the presence of others. 

Of hysteria, Professor Meyer writes, ‘‘I am inclined to refer 
to hysteria all the mental and physical disorders which are pro- 
duced by the effects of an emotion or idea which may work un- 
consciously to the patient, so that the simulation claimed by 
others is usually beyond the control of the patient, and the whole 
explanation is but accessible on hypnosis.’’* 

d. The Epileptic Constitution manifesting periods of exces- 
Sive irritability between the characteristic attacks. 

6. ‘‘Certain Types.’’ 

(a) The unresistive—responding easily to fever, to in- 
toxication. 
(b) The maniacal-depressive. 

‘Cf. his article “Constructive Formulation of Schizophrenia.” The 

American Journal of Psychiatry, 1922, I, pp. 355-364. 


2 American Journal of Psychology, 1903, xlv, p. 96. 
°L.¢., p. 101. 


286 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND PSYCHOTHERAPY 


(c) The paranoic—the suspicious individual with a ten- 
dency to self-isolation and to read a deep meaning 
into the most ordinary events. 

(d) The deterioration type (dementia precox). The 
easy-going individual who avoids conflicts, who 
suffers injury, and who is meek and humble— 
simply because he has not the energy and initia- 
tive to protest. He is likely to moralize, delineate 
standards that he cannot attain till ideals are all 
but achievement. The final state of such an indi- 
vidual is one of marked deterioration. 

Under these headings are contained the chief types of indi- 
viduals that come to the psychiatrist for treatment. The schema 
must be looked upon as a classification of individuals and not 
of disease entities. This distinction is one of fundamental impor- 
tance. By making it, Meyer would direct the student’s atten- 
tion to the individual and make him realize that his disorder 
arises from his springs of action, and only in relation to them 
ean it be understood. The schema is really the first step in a 
study of the psychopathic character. It indicates in a few 
headings the various types of individuals that the psychiatrist 
is called upon to treat. It would be a mistake, however, to look 
upon the schema merely as a mold for classifying individuals. 
Meyer is no more content with classifying individuals than he 
would be with naming diseases. The schema is only a first means 
of orientation in a very complex study of a human personality, 
and the balancing factors which are involved in his adjustment 
to his environment. 

Disease Entities.—The psychopathic individual reacts to his 
environment in a more or less characteristic way. His 
type of reaction is determined by his neurotic constitution. Not 
everyone can become a neurastheniec or a psychasthenie or hys- 
terical or run the downward course characteristic of dementia 
precox. In this way mental troubles, in some of their forms at 
least, differ from the disease entities of general medicine. For, 
given an infection with an adequate number of sufficiently virile 


PSYCHOPATHOLOGY AND PSYCHOTHERAPY 287 


typhoid bacilli, any man would contract typhoid, and manifest 
the definite symptoms of the disease. 

The case with mental disorders is somewhat different. The 
full reason why an individual develops hysteria is not to be 
sought, e.g., Im some disorder of the pelvic organs. Such a dis- 
order may be a factor and is a factor only when it works upon 
a neurotic constitution of the hysterical type. 

Given an individual whose sickness commenced with a period 
of headache and malaise, who has an enlarged spleen, a pain- 
ful abdomen, rose spots on his skin, a daily rising temperature, 
a positive Widal, and from whose blood the Ebert and Koch 
bacillus may be cultivated, we could make a diagnosis of typhoid. 
It would not be necessary for us to study his constitution and 
the various influences which affected it from birth to the onset 
of the present illness. The symptoms alone would give the 
diagnosis, and the diagnosis would indicate the treatment and 
special steps to be taken in the event of certain well-known 
complications. 

But with a mental disorder the problem is different. Even 
granted that certain classical symptoms are present and that 
the case can be classified according to one system or another— 
that does not settle the problem by any means. The concept of 
disease entities cannot be taken from general medicine and 
applied without any modification to mental disorders. 

‘“The maintenance of the disease-concept has a great advan- 
tage for orderly thinking, but like the neovitalistic modes of 
presentation of biological facts, it would be more detrimental 
if it should be considered as more than a formula of available 
facts, or a starting point of more fundamental work.’”* 

The detection of classical symptoms, while all-important in 
general medicine, is only suggestive in psychiatry. They indi- 
cate what line of questioning will throw the most light upon a 
thorough understanding of the case—an understanding which 
involves: 


*“ The Problems of Mental Reaction Types, Mental Causes and Dis- 
eases,” The Psychological Bulletin, 1908, V, p. 259. 


288 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND PSYCHOTHERAPY 


1. An intimate study of the living personality who is before 
us. This study will be directed and aided by one’s experience 
with the neurotic types of constitution. 

2. A study of the difficulties or conflicts under which this 
individual has labored. 

3. The type of reaction that he has manifested in deanae 
with his difficulties. 

Such a study does not necessarily give us what general medi- 
cine aims at—the picture of a disease—but insight into an indi- 
vidual. What troubles him is not always toxins, but a neuro- 
pathie constitution and his friction with reality. 

It is not to be supposed that Porfessor Meyer underrates or 
neglects the effects of known or unknown toxins on a patient’s 
mental condition. ‘‘Let us consider ... the condition of struc- 
ture of the nervous system, and especially of the cerebrum, 
and of the sensory-motor equipment, and of the vegetative and 
regulative mechanisms of the body, 7.e., the internal secretion 
organs, the foci of infections, ete. Whatever facts we can get 
in this structural level of observation are undoubtedly most 
dependable, controllable, and lasting. Sometimes, they are a 
complete explanation.’”® 

He gives all due consideration to toxic conditions, but directs 
attention to the fact that in referring symptoms to unknown 
toxins and imaginary lesions, one may neglect patent psycho- 
genic factors directly responsible for the present condition. 

‘‘As we study anomalies of mental activity and conduct, we 
find some plainly due to extra-psychological events, for instance, 
happenings in the brain, such as vascular occlusions with conse- 
quent softenings or inflammatory processes, or simple senile 
atrophy, or intoxications; that is, conditions which in their 
etiology, evolution and outcome, are clinched in terms of physi- 
ology and pathology of the nutrition and vascular apparatus of 
the brain. There are, however, other disorders in which the 
circulatory and nutritional facts are merely incidental, and 
which we find best expressed in terms of mental events or reac- 


5“ Aims and Meaning of Psychiatric Diagnosis,” The American Journal 
of Insanity, 1917, Ixxiv, p. 164. 


PSYCHOPATHOLOGY AND PSYCHOTHERAPY 289 


tions and their consequences. As such I should mention the 
results of emotional shocks or emotional fretting, or of continued 
uncorrected and unchecked false reasoning. Since in these con- 
ditions, certain infra-psychie biological relations are frequently 
found to be at fault as well, through incidental loss of sleep and 
malnutrition, etc., the physician is inclined to overrate them in 
his psychophobia, and, finally, to assume these subcentral con- 
ditions as the noumenal or ‘real cause,’ even when he does not find 
them or has nothing whatever to work on.’’® 

An undogmatiec attitude is necessary to the physician. It is 
easy to say all mental disorders mean some kind of brain dis- 
order, whether I can find the lesion or not. ‘‘To try to 
explain an hysterical fit, or a delusion system out of hypotheti- 
eal cell alterations which we cannot reach or prove, is at the 
present stage of histo-physiology, a gratuitous performance. 
To realize that such a reaction is a faulty response or substi- 
tution to an insufficient, or protective, or evasive, or mutilated 
attempt at adjustment, opens ways of inquiry in the direction 
of modifiable determining factors, and all of a sudden we find 
ourselves in a live field, in harmony with our instincts of action, 
of prevention, of modification and of understanding, doing justice 
to a desire for directness instead of neurologizing tautology.’ 

A study of the reaction of the individual to the situation is 
complementary to the analysis of his character. 

The psychiatrist, therefore, must study not only types of 
individuals, but their characteristic reactions. The reaction 
of the individual, or, if you will, his behavior in any situation, 
must be traced to its source, whether organic or mental. 

To understand abnormal conduct is the first step in modi- 
fying and correcting behavior or in discovering the fact that 
the condition cannot be cured. 

Abnormal Reaction Types.-—Professor Meyer distinguishes 
the following types of reaction :® 

*“The Problems of Mental Reaction Types, Mental Causes and Dis- 
eases,” The Psychological Bulletin, 1908, V, p. 253. 


Mii 04) p.e 266. 
*For a fuller statement Cf. J. c., p. 255 ff. 


290 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND PSYCHOTHERAPY 


1. The reaction of organic disorders: 

(a) Symptom pictures of asymbolia, apraxia, and 
aphasia. 

(b) Reactions on ground of focal or diffuse affections 
such as epilepsy, Korsakoff’s complex, general 
paralysis, senile dementia. 

2. Delirious states with dream-like imaginative experiences: 

(a) Exogenous (toxic-exhaustive), e.g., direct intoxica- 
tion (hasheesh, belladonna) or fever, or exhaustion. 

(b) Endogenous or psychogenic hysterical or other psy- 
chogenic tantrums. 

3. The essentially affective reactions. Manic-depressive 

states. 

4, Paranoic developments in various grades of development. 

(a) Tendeney to uneasiness, brooding sensitiveness. 

(b) Appearance of dominant notions, suspicious, or ill- 
balanced aims. 

(c) False interpretations with self-reference, and ten- 
dency to systematization. 

(d) Retrospective or hallucinatory falsifications, ete. 

(e) Megalomanie developments, or deterioration. 

(f) At any period antisocial and dangerous reactions 
may develop. 

5. Substitutive disorders of the type of hysteria and psy- 
chasthenia. 

6. Types of defect and deterioration: Existence or develop- 
ment of fundamental discrepancies between thought and re- 
action, ete. 

As Meyer remarks: ‘‘These conditions are not to be taken 
as ‘diagnoses’ but as reaction types.’’ It would almost seem as 
if he would do away with the concept of disease entities and 
replace it by that of reaction types. ‘‘What constitutes a dis- 
ease unit,’’ he says ‘‘is either merely a reaction type, or it is a 
reaction type under special etiology and special evolution and 
outcome, or it is possible to single out a definite item of events 
(infection or intoxication, or even a simple, rough injury or 
lesion). But, in these days in which the experimental interpre- 


PSYCHOPATHOLOGY AND PSYCHOTHERAPY 291 


tation has become so much superior to the old-fashioned way of 
telescoping events into the concept of a ‘lesion,’ we cannot afford 
any longer to ignore the claims of conduct and behavior or men- 
tal reactions, as they may give the safest and most sufficient pres- 
entation of the facts in a disorder.’’® 

In an article on the ‘‘ Fundamental Conceptions of Dementia 
Preecox,’’*® Meyer gives another classification, or perhaps what 
should be termed an explanatory analysis of reaction types. It 
is based upon the fact that ‘‘every individual is capable of re- 
acting to a very great variety of situations by a limited number 
of reaction types.’’ 

Roughly speaking, the reaction types may be divided into 
the normal and abnormal. The normal reaction type—or to 
use the common man’s English, the normal way of getting out 
of a difficulty—is to look matters squarely in the face, find out 
the best thing to do and go ahead and do it. ‘‘The full, whole- 
some, and complete reaction in any emergency or problem of 
activity is the final adjustment, complete or incomplete, but at 
any rate clearly planned so as to give a feeling of satisfaction 
and completion.’”+ 

The abnormal way is to evade the issue, to hide one’s head 
like the ostrich, and think the danger is past when not seen; 
to persuade oneself that sorrows are healed when they are sup- 
pressed. There are various ways of doing this, such as: 

1. An act of perplexity or evasive substitution. 

2. Temporizing attempts to tide over the difficulty, based 
on the hope that new interests will crowd out what would be 
fruitless worry or disappointment. 

3. Fault-finding with others, imaginative thoughts, praying. 

4, A tantrum, an hysterical fit. 

5. Negativism, an uncontrollable, unreasonable blocking fac- 
tor—the type of reaction characteristic of dementia precox. 

Therapy of Mental Disorders.—The study of reaction types 
and their setting initiates us into the mysteries of the patient’s 

°T. cy p. 259. 


0 British Medical Journal, September 26, 1906. 
“7, c., Reprint, p. 3. 


292 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND PSYCHOTHERAPY 


life. We get an insight into the etiology of his trouble and can 
commence a rational therapy. This therapy consists of dis- 
covering the conflict in the patient’s life from which his type 
of reaction proceeds. That this conflict may not lie on the sur- 
face of things is evident from the very character of the abnormal 
reaction types, from their tendency to evasion and suppression. 
In the discovery of the conflict, Meyer welcomes all the methods 
of modern psychoanalytical technique. It makes no difference 
how the conflict is discovered, whether by simple conversation 
with the patient or the analysis of free associations, or the 
word association test, or the interpretation of dreams. The all- 
important problem is to get at the difficulty of adjustment, and 
find out the cause of the trouble. The next thing to be done is to 
remove any existing cause of disturbance wherever possible, or 
to inactivate it by explanation, and a reéducation of the patient. 
At the same time, we must find out the patient’s level—that is, 
find out what he can do. ‘‘At every step, every person can do 
something well and take a satisfaction in doing it.’’?” 

This step in the treatment is one of fundamental importance. 
Many abnormalities arise because the patients have involved 
themselves in the intricacies of a self-spun web of imaginations. 
They have thus separated themselves from the real world, and 
the normal relations of social existence become more and more 
impossible. To tear through this artificial envelopment and teach 
them that the ‘‘satisfaction in something done is to be valued 
as ten times greater than the satisfaction taken in mere 
thought or imagination, however lofty,’’!* is the goal of modern 
psychotherapy. 

The patient has to find a solid foundation for constructive 
progress. Once this is successfully accomplished, there is no 
danger of further complication. The individual finds his level 
and leads a useful and even happy existence. 

Just as we must recognize consumption before an individual 

4“ What do Histories of Cases of Insanity Teach us Concerning Pre- 
ventive Mental Hygiene during the Years of School Life?” The Psycho- 
logical Clinic, 1908, II, p. 98. 

“DL. ¢.,‘p: 98. 


PSYCHOPATHOLOGY AND PSYCHOTHERAPY 293 


has wasted away and therapy is too late, so also we must recog- 
nize mental disorders in their earliest beginnings. ‘‘As long 
as consumption was the leading concept of the dreaded con- 
dition of tuberculosis, its recognition very often came too late 
to make therapeutics tell. If dementia is the leading concept 
of a disorder, its recognition is the declaration of bankruptcy.’’!4 

Dementia is always preluded by abnormalities of reaction. 
Experience teaches us that evasions, suppressions, tantrums, 
ete., are abnormal reactions. They spell the beginnings of a 
downward course, which if not corrected may lead to com- 
plete deterioration. In dementia precox, for instance, ‘‘we have 
to do with a perfectly natural, though perhaps unusually persis- 
tent development of tendencies difficult to balance.’’?® 

The characteristic traits of the precox patient, his isolation 
from the real world, his negativism, his fantastic, imaginary 
existence, his superficial moralizing, are all tendencies which we 
meet in normal children, and in adolescents. In most children 
these tendencies are balanced by interests in the real world 
which are always counteracting their inclination to day- 
dreaming. Suppose, however, there comes a crisis of some kind, a 
failure, following upon bright expectations, associated with the 
inability to escape from the harsh demands of an unsympathetic 
environment. Then what was before incipient and curable, 
rapidly develops into a state of mental deterioration from which 
there is no hope of recovery. We must, therefore, learn by a 
study of reaction types and their evolution to recognize danger 
when it first appears, and take the proper steps before it is too 
late. What are these steps? 

1. Take the individual away from the conflict. 

2. Find his mental level. 

3. Engage him in work suitable to his real abilities. 

For at every step every person can do something well and take 
satisfaction in doing it. 
"4 Fundamental Conceptions of Dementia Praecox,” British Medical 
Journal, September 29, 1906. (Reprint.) 


«What do Histories of Cases of Insanity Teach us Concerning Pre- 
ventive Medical Hygiene?” The Psychological Clinic, 1908, II, p. 96. 


CHAPTER V 
THE TECHNIQUE OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 


PSYCHOTHERAPY must not be conceived of as a method of 
treating diseases of all kinds. This has been a claim that charla- 
tans of all sorts have made. ‘‘Mental healing’’ is not meant to 
be a substitute for other forms of therapy. It deals only with a 
certain group of cases, and in that it is like all sound therapeutic 
procedure which is, by nature, specific and not general. A pana- 
cea for all human ills has not yet been discovered. Psychotherapy 
has to do with mental disorders. If it is applied to patients with 
physical disabilities of organic origin it can have no direct thera- 
peutic value. It may aid by a general improvement of the mental 
attitude, but beyond that, in truly physical disabilities, it can 
do nothing. But not all physical symptoms are due to organic 
causes. A paralysis, e.g., is a physical symptom. Blindness, deaf- 
ness, convulsive seizures, all manifest themselves as physical symp- 
toms. They are not, however, by that fact always to be attributed 
to organic cause. If physical symptoms, therefore, are presented 
in a psychiatrie clinic for treatment, the first question to be asked 
is whether or not the symptoms have merely an organic or a men- 
tal basis. If organic, they are to be referred to a purely medical 
practitioner or a surgeon. If not organic, they are functional; 
and if functional, they are amenable to psychotherapy. In most 
organic disorders there is a functional overflow, that is to say, 
the apparent disability has two components, one organic, the other 
functional. Sometimes the organic disability is trifling, the func- 
tional is the main disabling mechanism. Such cases can be so 
much improved by psychotherapy that they seem to be cured. 


A. TREATMENT OF FUNCTIONAL PHYSICAL DISORDERS 


Functional physical disorders are very often monosymptom- 
atic, that is, the presenting symptom is practically the only one. 
It is true that they are always based upon a defect of personality, 
but at the moment this defect manifests itself in one way which 

294 





THE TECHNIQUE OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 295 


may be promptly and readily cured. What now is the technique 
of cure in these more or less monosymptomatic conditions? An 
understanding of the technique of the cure can best be explained 
by a few cases drawh from the treatment of the war neuroses. 
Take for example the treatment of tremors. 

Cases of functional tremor were brought into the neurological 
hospitals in France after an engagement just like the wounded 
into the surgical hospitals. We were told that such cases had to 
be cured before sending them to the ward, and it was often easy 
to carry out the orders. What was the method? The method 
depended upon the principle that a relaxed muscle cannot trem- 
ble. The medical officer of the day came to the soldier whose right 
arm, let us say, was executing gross, and apparently uncontrol- 
lable tremors. He started by giving his patient a simple lesson 
in muscular contraction. He pointed to his biceps and said: 
‘“When I bend my arm, this muscle must contract. When I 
extend it, the muscle on the other side must contract while the 
former muscle relaxes. If both muscles contract at the same time, 
the result must necessarily be a tremor. But if a tremor develops 
and the muscles on both sides are then relaxed, the tremor 
must disappear.”’ 

A second point was now made use of. Passive movement of 
a member, that is, movement executed by another, relaxes the 
muscles. The physician then takes the arm of the patient, bends 
and stretches it, and moves it about, and shakes it until all ten- 
sion is gone. He then shows the patient the relaxed arm without 
-atremor. It was interesting to watch the face of the soldier when 
his tremor disappeared. Cures of tremors brought about in this 
way at the front were not temporary, but permanent. We have 
already explained the psychological reason for the war neuroses,* 
and will not go into the matter again. The technique in the 
ease of arm and leg tremors was universally successful. 
| Let us now take, as an example, the cure of functional deaf- 
ness. The technique involved in the first place an explanation 
| of the probable nature of hysteria. The word hysteria was not 
mentioned. The patient was told that there were two types of 
EMWNOt supe, p. 20 moet yw: oy A aa 


296 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND PSYCHOTHERAPY 


interruption possible between the ear and the brain. I used to 
employ the simile of a telephone exchange. If there is a storm 
and the wires are broken down, nothing can go through the 
exchange until the wires are strung again. This corresponds 
to an organic injury. If central should go to sleep at her desk, 
there would be no physical interruption of the wires; the central 
station, however, would not answer. Connections could be quickly 
established by awakening central. 

After the elimination of the possibility of real organic injury, 
the patient would be told that in his case, the neural connections 
were not really broken, but a brain centre was asleep and its 
proper functioning could quickly be reéstablished. This figurative 
explanation is probably as good as any that could be given in the 
present state of our information on the phenomena of hysteria. 
After this, the suggestion was reinforced by an electric battery. 
The treatment was painful, and perhaps made it worthwhile to 
hear. At all events, I have repeatedly seen cases of psychological 
deafness cleared up in a few minutes by this treatment. Func- 
tional paralysis may be cured in a similar way. 

One functionally paralyzed, for example, so that he cannot 
walk, will do things involving the activity of all the necessary 
muscles, but will not walk, or will perhaps walk slowly only with 
assistance. Such patients will insist that they need a support, 
and will actually pick up the chair on which they lean and move 
it ahead of them in an effort that requires more expenditure of 
energy than walking itself. It is not the place to point out here 
the differences in the reflexes which distinguish organic paraly- 
sis from functional. This differentiation is usually easy. When 
one has assured himself that the paralysis is functional, he com- 
meneces the cure by merely persuading the patient to stand, and 
then urges him to take a step with assistance. He then points out 
that the assistance is unnecessary. Mere urging and insisting 
brings about the eure. 

One of the most interesting fields for the display of suggestive 
treatment is aphonia, that is, the inability of making a voiced 
sound. These patients are really cured by imposing upon their 
ignorance. At least, the first step in the cure is a trick. Most 
people do not know that coughing involves the activity of the 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 297 


vocal cords. A voiced sound can always be detected in the cough 
of an individual whose vocal cords are not paralyzed. If they 
are paralyzed in reality, the attempt to cough leads to a blowing 
sound, but to no voiced tone. The hysterically aphonic patient 
is, therefore, asked to cough. If the physician hears a tone of 
any kind however slight, he points this out to the patient. He 
asks him to cough again, and make the sound, assuring him that 
he is making progress. He tells him that the sound indicates 
that his vocal cords are acting, and then persuades him to cough 
‘*Q.’’ This having succeeded, he persuades him to cough ‘‘E,”’ 
and so goes through the vowel sounds. After that, it is an easy 
matter to put on the consonants. The patient is then told that he 
has made every sound in the English language, and that there 
is no reason in the wide world why he cannot talk, and the physi- 
cian insists on his pronouncing a word. The cure is ordinarily 
ended within fifteen or twenty minutes. Some patients apparently 
get the idea that the treatment is to extend over several sittings. 
They must be promptly disabused of any such notion and told 
that they are going to talk before they leave the room. I have 
never had this technique of treatment fail of its result. 

The cure may be accelerated by the use of an electric battery. 
You tell the patient that you are going to send an electric current 
through his voice box. You place the electrodes on either side 
of the larynx and ask the patient to say ‘‘O.’’ ‘‘O”’’ is a natural 
reflex to pain, and some patients, when given a good strong shock 
will shriek ‘‘O’’ at the top of their voice and are instantly cured. 

This technique is useful not only in war neuroses but also in a 
number of cases that present themselves in civil life. Psycho- 
analysis is not necessary to effect these cures. Many of the 
patients have not a mentality of sufficiently high order to make 
them amenable to a psychoanalytic treatment. They can, how- 
ever, be promptly cured by this type of suggestive therapy. If 
they are of sufficiently high mentality, it is worthwhile attempt- 
ing an analysis after the cure. With the insight that the analysis 
gives them, it is less likely that the condition will reappear. I 
have known both analyzed and unanalyzed patients to be cured 
and remain cured for several years without any relapse. 

20 


298 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND PSYCHOTHERAPY 


Hypnosis has frequently been made use of in psychotherapy. 
It is, however, of doubtful value. There may possibly be some 
forms of physical disability of functional origin that would not 
yield to suggestive treatment, but would be more amenable to 
hypnosis. I have not, however, found it necessary to employ 
hypnosis for functionally disabled patients. They can usually be 
eured and sent away in the time that it would take to bring an 
ordinary subject into the hypnotic sleep. 


B, TREATMENT OF MENTAL DISORDERS 


Suggestive therapy has its chief value in the monosymptom- 
atic functional disabilities. It is not applicable to the complex 
problems of real mental disorders. The psychotherapy, there- 
fore, of the psychoneuroses must take on a different form. The 
physician who attempts it must understand mental mechanisms. 
He must know many types of behavior and their explanation, in 
order to get an insight into a majority of the queer phenomena 
that come into a psychiatrical dispensary. In my opinion, he 
will find that neither Freud nor Jung nor Adler nor any of the 
psychoanalysts in their particular theories, has found out the 
universal mechanism of all mental disorders. Freudian psychol- 
ogy is applicable with most probability of success to states of 
anxiety which, as we have said, are characteristic of a definite 
type of personality. The constitutional sublimator would prob- 
ably yield more easily to Jung’s type of psychotherapy. Jung’s 
principle of synthesis is, however, applicable to all, and it is to 
be regretted that neither he nor anyone has worked out a tech- 
nique of synthetic therapy. Adler enables us to understand many 
patients with a feeling of inferiority. 

It is, therefore, necessary for the psychotherapist to have as 
wide an understanding as possible of the various psychoanalytic 
schools, and a deep acquaintance with the mechanisms of the 
human personality. In the light of this information, the physician 
studies the patient to find out the underlying cause of his abnor- 
mal behavior. 

Procedure in the Case of Children.—The mode of procedure 
differs somewhat in children and in adults. In children, there 





THE TECHNIQUE OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 299 


- should always be a preliminary measurement of intelligence. For 
very young children, the Kuhlmann tests are available. For 


children four years old and over, Terman’s revision of the Binet- 
Simon tests are probably the best. It is very important to know 


_ whether or not abnormality of conduct in children is due to a 


defect of intelligence. 
Besides the measurement of intelligence, one should also have 
an insight into the home conditions. This is usually to be gained 


_ only with the aid of an adequately trained social worker. 


One should also have a report from the school, so that one may 


_ know something of the regularity of attendance and the child’s 
— rapport with his teachers. Many abnormalities of juvenile con- 


duet come from lack of a proper understanding between child 
and teacher, and the child’s lack of appreciation of the value 


of elementary school instruction. This lack of appreciation 


is sometimes due to the inadequacy of parents and to poor 
home conditions. 

With the information thus obtained from various sources the 
physician has a conversation with the child. He attempts first 
of all to gain his confidence, to talk over his difficulties. Per- 


haps he makes a mental examination in certain cases, according 


to the form given below for adults. With children, however, 


this is generally unnecessary. Conditions are simpler; the mech- 


anism at the basis of the abnormality of the conduct is easily 


found, and a suggestion can readily be formulated for the 
improvement of the child’s behavior. Such a suggestion, when 


- given to the parents, to the court, or to the social organization 
- interested in the child, should always be regarded as tentative. 
_ It should be checked up in a little while, and modified in the light 
of future developments. 


Procedure in the Case of Adults.—When an adult comes to 


a physician or a clinic for mental help, his difficulties are usually 
of rather a serious nature. This, however, is not always the case, 


but the physician will readily see, after a few minutes examina- 
tion, whether or not he is dealing with something that can be 


_ put off with a few words of friendly advice, or whether he is con- 
_ fronted with a serious mental problem. 


800 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND PSYCHOTHERAPY 


In such cases, he makes a thorough study of the patient. This 
involves a family history in which the problem of heredity is taken 
up, a personal histery, including the chief points of the patient’s 
life, the diseases he has suffered from, his educational opportuni- 
ties, his employment history, etc. Patients who come voluntarily 
are usually willing to give all the information that the physician 
desires. Institutional cases, and those that one meets with in 
military service are often more reticent. 

After the family and personal histories, the preliminary step 
is the mental examination. I have developed the schema, given 
at the end of this chapter, for this examination which should be 
consulted while reading the following: It is based, to some ex- 
tent, on our study of the pathology of the will.? The family and 
personal histories will enable one to answer the question of 
whether or not the patient’s behavior is acute or chronic, and 
whether or not it involves hereditary factors. Besides this, it is 
useful to know what attempts have been made in the past to 
modify the abnormal conduct. This gives us an insight into the 
prognosis. If nothing has been done, it is more likely that assist- 
ance will modify conduct. If, however, everything possible has 
been done in the past, the physician approaches treatment with 
less hope of success. 

One should inquire at the outset into the patient’s plan of 
life. This and the whole mental examination in itself is a thera- 
peutic procedure, and one of great value in many cases. Some 
mental problems arise from the fact that the patient has never 
made any adequate attempt to solve life’s difficulties, and fill an 
honorable place in the world. It is a revelation to him even to 
think rationally on the subject. One approaches the problem by 
asking some such simple question as: ‘‘ What is your outlook for 
the future? What are your plans? What do you hope to do 
with yourself?’’ One is surprised to find so often that patients 
have no plans. They have simply slipped into an ideal of life 
that aims at enjoyment but not at accomplishment. 

One may then inquire cautiously into the presence of ideas 
of reference, suspicions, ete. Here one may get on the track of a 
U9 Gf infra, p. 868 8. ey tee eee 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 301 


whole system of delusions. Care should be taken in certain cases 
not to arouse suspicion in the patient’s mind that you are exam- 
ining him for ‘‘insanity.’’ It is therefore better to put off to the 
end the inquiry into the presence of hallucinations and the 
patient’s orientation in time and place. The memory for the 
dates of his life has already been obtained in taking his personal 
history. While taking this history, the physician asks age, year 
of birth, dates and ages of leaving school, going to work, mar- 
riage, etc. Gross deficiencies of memory will manifest themselves 
in the fact that there are two or more years’ discrepancy in these 
figures. In the ignorant, wide margins are to be allowed. 

By insight we mean whether or not the patient knows there 
is anything wrong with his mind. This can be determined from 
the general course of the examination or by a positive question. 

The mood of the patient is often evident at a glance, and it 
is one of the facts of mental life that the patient usually has no 
objection to revealing. I have been in the habit of inquiring 
into emotional resonance with the idea of finding out whether 
or not the lack of this resonance is common in any type of patho- 
logical behavior. A person who is not affected by the sight of 
blood, who feels no sympathy with one who is injured, who is not 
angered when he sees animals cruelly treated, lacks something in 
his emotional life that tends to make for normal conduct. 

In the mental examination it is necessary to know something 
about the chief sorrows and difficulties of the patient’s life, what 
mental shocks he has experienced in the past, what are his present 
conflicts, what have been his dominant modes of mental adjust- 
ment, his psychotaxes and his parataxes in past conflicts with 
his surroundings. 

We should then like to know whether or not there is any rela- 
tion. between his present behavior and his past complexes. This 
question is seldom to be answered from the superficial mental 
examination alone. We should also inquire into whether or not 
the pathological behavior is due to overaccentuation of impulsive 
drives. Has a taste for drink been acquired? If the individual 
is young, is there premature sex development? Very frequently 
pathological behavior is due to lack of correlation between sex 


302 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND PSYCHOTHERAPY 


development and intellectual growth. One should also inquire 
into overaccentuation of the various forms of amusements, mov- 
ing pictures, dances, ete. 

Among the important items of information about a patient 
are any data we may obtain in regard to his moral stamina or 
strength of will. Think as we may theoretically about the exist- 
ence or non-existence of will, its freedom or necessity, individuals 
do differ widely in their power of self-control. In studying a 
patient, the question always arises: Has the person before us little 
or no self-control, or has he at least in the past been able to man- 
age himself and pursue a consistent plan of life in spite of diffi- 
culties? Fairly reliable information can be obtained on this 
point by asking the patient a few questions. 

Defects of will, from one point of view, may be classified as 
due to unreasonable obstinacy or downright inability to keep a 
resolution. Ask the patient, do you remember any instances in 
which you have been unreasonably obstinate? Have you ever 
made any resolutions? If so, what? How long did you keep 
them? Against what difficulties did you contend in order to keep 
your resolution? Such questions yield to the physician a great 
deal of valuable information about the patient, and give the 
patient a helpful insight into himself and his own behavior. 
Tt is valuable also to try to decide whether or not lack of volun- 
tary control is native and essential or due to the mere absence of 
interests and an adequate goal of effort. The previous inquiry 
into the patient’s plan of life will give valuable hints on this 
problem. One should always bear in mind the fact that ap- 
parently hopeless mental problems have found a solution by 
awakening dormant will power by an adequate stimulus, that is 
to say, by the incitement of a goal that appeals to the personality 
of the patient. 

Even in a mental examination, one should consider the pres- 
ence of organic cerebral conditions. One should inquire into the 
possibility of an early encephalitis, or meningitis, malnutrition, 
infectious diseases of childhood, epilepsy, drug addiction, ete. 

The accompanying schema summarizes the course of the men- 
tal examination. This will give us only what lies on the surface. 


THE TECHNIQUE OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 303 


Special technique must be employed to discover factors which 
lie at the basis of many forms of pathological behavior. We have 
already given an account of these in the section on the study of 
the unconscious.® 

I have found the method of dream analysis to be of special 
value in discovering difficulties that are really unconscious or 
which the patient withheld in the superficial examination. With 
some patients the Freudian method of free association leads to 
the desired result. Some patients report no dreams and decline 
to give any free associations. One then makes use of Jung’s 
method of controlled association, and often obtains with it the 
desired insight. 

This insight must then be skilfully imparted to the patient. 
He must be led to understand himself. The patient, after all, 
must, in the last resort, be responsible for the management of his 
own life. The physician will often be disappointed if he hopes 
to cure by analysis alone. If, however, by analysing he gives the 
patient a new insight into the mechanism of his conduct, he does 
the patient a real service and starts him on the road to perma- 
nent recovery. 

What we have so far dealt with has been analysis, but analy- 
sis alone is seldom capable of working a cure. This is particu- 
larly the case when a patient is in an impossible situation. The 
physician must then supply a solution. The first step is usually 
the cessation of idleness. A rest cure is seldom necessary. Most 
patients need occupation. Some way must be found to get it for 
them. Those who have unreasonably given up their work should 
be told to go back to it. They usually protest that it is impossi- 
ble, but the physician assures them that with the assistance they 
are going to have in the future, it will be possible. If the patient 
is out of work and has no way of obtaining it, the social service 
department must take up the problem and do its best to provide 
it. Or a member of the family must see to it that the patient 
‘does at first a few chores in the home. Naturally, the physician 
must take into consideration the physical capacity of his patient, 


° Cf. supra, p. 37 ff. 





304 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND PSYCHOTHERAPY 


but in my experience, neurotics have, in general, given up work 
without real necessity .* 

From the study of the patient’s life and surroundings, chan- 
nels of sublimation must be opened. This is often relatively 
easy with the more or less intelligent. The adoption of a child 
has worked a transformation in some of my patients’ lives. Re- 
ligion is an outlet that should always be made use of whenever 
possible, that is, whenever there is a basis for religion in the 
patient’s life. Religion alone can give a truly satisfactory solu- 
tion to the problems of our existence, and it is most unfortunate 
that so many have never entered the sphere of its influence. 

Cures of mental conditions are sometimes, but not often, 
sudden. The monosymptomatic functional disorder with a physi- 
eal manifestation can promptly be overcome, but the mental re- 
adjustment of a patient who has lost his contact with reality is a 
more or less gradual process. 

The therapeutic procedure here outlined has, I am sure, helped 
a number of cases. It does not cure all. There are many cases, 
especially those with a schizophrenic coloring, in which I suspect 
an organic factor. Psychotherapy should not be pushed with a 
blind ardor that would keep practitioners from considering the 
possibility of organic factors in mental disorders. The true psy- 
chiatrist will not only be on the lookout for new mental mechan- 
isms in psychiatric literature, but will also turn to the results of 
physiological ees for light upon the problems that con- 
front him.5 

*It should be noted that psychotherapy should not be practised except 
by one who is a properly qualified physician if serious blunders are to 
be avoided. 

* For case histories and further information on the technique of Psy- 


chotherapy, consult Part IV, Chapters V-IX; and the references in the 
subject index under the headings, Therapy and Psychotherapy. 


MENTAL EXAMINATION 


BNR IMNG ie pe sce estes M. S. W. D. Race. W. C. other specify........ 


EXPRESSION.—Bright, dull, healthy, sick, sad, happy, anxious, indifferent. 
“Parkinson facies.” 

BrHAVioR.—Normal, abnormal—specify. Evidence that conduct is acute, 
chronic, or hereditary. 

ATTEMPTS MapE To Mopiry Conpuctr.—Parental influence. Education. 
Special agencies. Clinical or private consultation with physician. 


DeFects Dur To ABNORMALITIES OF INTELLECTUAL Lire.—Plan of life. If 
none given, determine it from patient’s idea; if any, of what he wants to 
become, and his mode of seeking enjoyment. 


Delusions. Ideas of reference, suspicions, false interpretations. (These 
may often be brought out by asking, is there anyone in particular who 
causes you trouble?) 


Hallucinations. 
Orientation. What day of week of month year 

season morning or evening What city building 
Memory. Of dates of life. Recent events. Digit span. 
Insight. 


305 


306 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND PSYCHOTHERAPY 


Derects Dur To ABNORMALITIES OF EMOTIONAL LIFE.— 


Afood. 
Flow of Thought. Ideas of Suicide. Attempts at Suicide. 


Emotional Resonance. Ask if patient is affected by sight of blood, seeing 
someone injured, animals mistreated. 


Chief Sorrows and Difficulties of Life. Mental shocks. 


Present Conflict. 


MENTAL EXAMINATION 307 


DoMINANT PsSYCHOTAXES AND PARATAXES IN Past.— 


RELATION OF PRESENT BEHAVIOR TO PAST COMPLEXES.— 


DEFEctTS Dur To OVERACCENTUATION OF IMPULSIVE DRIvES.— 


Drink. Sex, early ripening, indulgence. 
Moving pictures. Other amusements. : 


308 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND PSYCHOTHERAPY 


DeFrects DUE TO ABNORMALITIES OF VOLITIONAL CONTROL.—EVIDENCE OF 
UNREASONABLE OBSTINACY OR CONSTANT YIELDING.— 


DEGREE OF ABILITY TO KEEP RESOLUTIONS.— 


FLIGHTINESS OF PURPOSE.— 


RELATION GF EDUCATION AND TRAINING TO ABNORMALITY OF CoNDUCT.— 


Derects DuE TO ORGANIC CoNnpDITIONS.—Early or recent encephalitis or 
meningitis. Malnutrition in infancy. Relation of onset of behavior 
to infectious diseases of childhood. 

Epilepsy. Mental defect. 
Arteriosclerosis. Venereal infection. 


Drue AppicTtion.—Alcohol, morphine, cocaine. 


PuysicaL ConpiTion.—Chief points, particularly indications of endo- 
crinopathy. 


PART VI 
VOLITIONAL CONTROL 


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CHAPTER I 


VOLUNTARY ACTION AND THE ACT OF WILL 


General Problem of the Existence of Will.—It cannot be 
doubted that the human organism is a complicated machine. The 
bones, the muscles, the nerves, the blood vessels, and the various 
organs of the body constitute an intricate mechanism. If we 
study its anatomy alone, we are likely to be impressed with the 
mechanical nature of its levers, of its system of vascular tubes 
through which flows the blood, pumped by the heart, the mechani- 
eal nature of its reflexes, ete. Nevertheless, when we look at our 
own inner life there seems to be something in our management 
of our own affairs that is not entirely the mechanical response 
to the forces of nature that are constantly playing upon our 
sense organs. 

If we were to study the structure of an ocean liner with all 
its complicated mechanisms, we would never learn from the 
study just why it is that this enormous boat goes to one harbor 
rather than another. We might find the pilot-house and under- 
stand thoroughly its connection with the rudder, and still, though 
we had a clear insight into the mechanism of the steering, the 
mystery of the boat going into a particular harbor rather than 
to many others would be insoluble. There is a pilot in the boat, 
and he knows why he steers it one way rather than another. 

The question now arises in regard to the human mechanism, 
is there a pilot-house and a pilot in the human machine? The 
chapters that follow are an attempt to study the steering-gear of 
the human mechanism and to find out, if possible, whether or 
not, over and above the steering-gear, some kind of piloting is 
done by a process which is not to be confounded with the work- 
ings of the steering-gear itself. Note in the first place that the 
question here involved is not the same thing as the problem of 
human freedom, a problem which is likely to arise first in the 
minds of those accustomed to the classic discussion of the will. It 

811 


312 VOLITIONAL CONTROL 


is a problem more fundamental than the question of freedom, 1.¢., 
is there any will at all? Is there anything to be free, is a ques- 
tion that must be settled before we discuss the freedom of the will. 

The more common opinion in modern psychology is that there 
is no such thing as will in our mental life as something distinct 
from the commonly recognized elements: Sensations, images, 
and feelings.* 

Ziehen, for instance, denies that there is any mental process 
termed will, and reduces voluntary phenomena to the phenomena 
of association. Bain and Wundt would explain the will in terms 
of feelings. The Cornell School regards will as nothing more 
than kinesthetic sensations.? Ribot, who would be seconded by 
the modern Behavioristie school, would regard will as identical 
with the sum total of the organism’s responses to its environment. 

In view, therefore, of the many attempts to explain volun- 
tary action without any will, it is necessary, in the first place, to 
ask ourselves just what evidence there is for some kind of puilot- 
ing in the human mechanism. We may approach this problem 
by an analysis of those mental phenomena in which voluntary 
action is most apparent. Let us ask ourselves, therefore, what 
evidence there is of voluntary control. 

Although many authors attempted to explain control, par- 
ticularly control of movements, by sensations that arise in the 
moving member, it was pointed out by Striimpell® that even in 
voluntary movements there must be a central cortical control, 
and that sensations from the moving organ cannot completely 
account for all phenomena of control. Thus, for instance, it 
sometimes happens that an arm is completely deprived of sensa- 
tion. It cannot execute movements when the eyes are closed. If, 
- 1For introductory summary with some references to the literature, ef. 
R. H. Wheeler, “ Theories of the Will and Kinesthetic Sensations,” Psychol. 
Rev., Princeton, N. J., 1920, XX VII, pp. 351-360. The best summary of the 
experimental literature on the will is to be found in J. Lindworsky’s Der 
Wille, Leipzig, 1923, p. 282. 

Cf. R. H. Wheeler, An Experimental Investigation of the Process of 


Choosing, University of Oregon Publications, 1920, Vol. I. 
* Deutsche Ztsch. f. Klin. Med., 1903, X XXIII, p. 25. 


VOLUNTARY ACTION AND THE ACT OF WILL 313 


however, the patient is looking at his arm, he can execute move- 
ments with it.. In such a ease control does not come from sensa- 
tions resident in the moving organ. Control comes from visual 
sensations. These must be brought to a centre, and there worked 
over and brought to the moving organ. Some kind of a central 
factor is, therefore, necessary in such eases. If, however, we 
analyze our own mental life, we find considerable evidence of 
voluntary control in its various departments. 

Evidence of Voluntary Control.—Many authors, in consider- 
ing the question of voluntary action, have been hampered in 
their attempt to deal with the problem by what is really an 
assumption based upon a metaphysical theory. Men say there 
ean be no voluntary action, for voluntary action implies freedom, 
and how ean there be freedom in a world in which all is ruled 
by the push and pull of mechanical forces. It is therefore neces- 
sary, they say, to consider our mental life without any reference 
to will. The facts must be forced into a mold in which there 
is no compartment for anything voluntary. 

Before we lay down the laws of the possible and the impos- 
sible, let us look fairly and squarely at the facts as they are, 
and deduce all theories and conclusions from a consideration 
of the facts. 

1. The first group of facts which merit our attention are the 
facts of attention. All writers on attention discuss, at least, the 
distinction between voluntary and involuntary attention. It 
seems impossible to consider attention without realizing that it has 
two very different forms. Some stimuli force themselves upon our 
attention. The explosion of a pistol in our immediate vicinity 
would instantly find its way to the focus point of our attention. 
Whether we would hear it or not would not be subject to 
voluntary control: On the other hand, one has often to force 
himself to pay attention to an uninteresting duty. It seems, too, 
however we may explain it, that we may attend to one thing or 
another just as we will. We have, therefore, a considerable con- 
' trol over the mental function that we term attention. There 
is no experimental evidence, and no empirical consideration of 
any kind whatsoever, to weaken in any way this natural and 

21 


314 VOLITIONAL CONTROL 


necessary division of our acts of attention into two classes, volun- 
tary and involuntary. The only objection that can be raised 
to it is that, theoretically, it is impossible. But, leaving aside 
theory, the fact is that we do turn our attention from one 
thing to another at will. There is something, therefore, in our 
mental life that directs our attention. It is not wholly determined 
by the stimuli from without. 

2. If a person asks us to do something for him, we may accept 
the task or not, according as we please; or we may consider a 
course of action and we may resolve to follow it or reject it. 
Once such a resolution is made, it has a distinct effect on our 
mental life. It may flow over at once into action, or hours, days, 
weeks, months, years may elapse, during all of which time a cer- 
tain set of mind perseveres. Evidently something of far-reaching 
import has taken place in our mental life. What is it that has 
adjusted our mind in this definite way? It is not intelligence, 
not the understanding of what is asked of us, not an insight 
into a course of action, but it is something which we may describe 
as a determination. There seems to be a power of resolution, 
which may not only decide a thing for a moment, but may adjust 
the mental life so that it takes a definite point of view over long 
periods of time. This power of submission, of rejection, of 
resolution, of perseverance in a determination is something real 
in our mental hfe. It is one way in which voluntary control 
manifests itself. 

3. One of the earliest attempts to get an insight into voli- 
tional activity was by what is known as the reaction-time experi- 
ment. These experiments, as we have seen, were suggested by the 
attempt of an astronomer to record the exact time that a star 
passed the cross-hair of a telescope. Psychologists attempted to 
find out the interval that elapsed between the perception of the 
stimulus and the indication by a subject that he had perceived it 
through a prearranged signal. Thus, a sound was given and as 
soon as the subject heard the sound he raised his finger from a 
telegraph key. The apparatus was so arranged that an electric 
contact was made by a lttle hammer hitting an anvil and broken 
again when the subject lifted his finger from the telegraph key. 


VOLUNTARY ACTION AND THE ACT OF WILL 315 


The interval between the make contact and the break is the sub- 
ject’s simple reaction time. After this simple reaction time had 
been measured, a compound reaction-time involving a voluntary 
choice was made the subject of experiment. In these compound re- 
actions the subject, if he heard one signal, was to react; if he heard 
another, he was not to react ; or if he heard one signal, he was to re- 
act with his right hand; if another, with his left hand, ete. Before 
his reaction, therefore, the subject had to make a voluntary 
choice to do or not to do; to do this or to do that. 

With the development of introspective methods in psychology, 
minute studies have been made of what transpires in a subject’s 
mind during a reaction-time experiment. Narziss Ach,* by an 
ingenius set of conditions, adapted the reaction-time experiment 
to astudy of the will. He was enabled to analyze an act of choice 
into the following elements: (i) The sensory element, 7.¢., the 
kinesthetic sensations; (2) the intellectual element of the idea 
of the end to be obtained and the ways and means of realizing it; 
(3) the essential element, ¢.c., the consciousness of willing ; (4) the 
dynamic element or the feeling of effort. 

Coffin® and Wheeler® have attempted the same analysis and 
they feel that the kinesthetic sensations are capable of account- 
ing for voluntary action without any assumption of Ach’s essen- 
tial element involving a voluntary fiat. Miss Calkins’ has found, 
however, in Wheeler’s own results non-sensory elements which he 
himself apparently did not recognize. 

My own experience with the reaction-time experiment makes 
me feel quite certain that volitional activity does two things: (a) 
It produces a readiness of the organism to react to a given stimu- 
lus. This readiness is accompanied by kinesthetic sensations 
but probably is something far deeper in its nature than the sensa- 

*Ueber den Willensakt und das Temperament, Leipzig, 1910; Ueber 
den Willensakt und das Denken, Gottingen, 1910. 

* Joseph Herschel Coffin, An Analysis of the Action of Consciousness 
Based upon the Simple Reaction, Thesis, Cornell, 1907. 

*R. H. Wheeler, An Experimental Investigation of the Process of 
Choosing, University of Oregon Publications, 1920, Vol. I. 


7“ Fact and Inference in Raymond Wheeler’s Doctrine of Will and 
Self-activity,” Psychol. Rev., 1921, XXVIII, pp. 356-374. 


316 VOLITIONAL CONTROL 


tions coming from the muscles themselves. (b) There is a 
moment of willing which sets off the mechanism that is made 
ready in the preliminary stages. It is not a sensation of the stimu- 
lus alone which discharges this mechanism, but the voluntary fiat.® 

It is thus seen that the analysis of the reaction-time experl- 
ment gives us evidence of specific voluntary control in the 
human mechanism. 

4, In our emotional life we have another sphere of volitional 
control. It is true that we cannot increase or decrease the inten- 
sity of our feelings and emotions at will, just as we can directly 
influence the intensity of a muscular contraction. Nevertheless, 
there is some possibility of indirectly influencing our emotional 
life. This is done by the direction of attention. 

Emotions, as we have seen, are reactions to intellectual insights 
into a situation; if we go over and over again in our mind the 
meaning of an insult, and all that it implies, we certainly can 
intensify our anger and indignation. If we turn our attention 
to other things, the emotion is likely to die away more quickly. 
It is possible, however, to do more than this. If we attempt to 
make a psychological analysis of an emotion, to bring the emo- 
tion before the focus point of consciousness, not its cause but 
the emotion itself, it melts away like wax in front of a hot fire. 
Emotional states, as such, cannot be brought to the focus point 
of consciousness, and any attempt to do so makes them dwindle 
away at once. 

We have, therefore, a certain possibility of emotional control. 
Attend to the cause of the emotion and you strengthen it. Attend 
to the emotion itself, analyze it as such without reference to its 
cause, and you weaken it. It takes, however, considerable ingenu- 
ity in the pilot of the human mechanism to make a psychological 
analysis of any violent emotion, or to turn the mind away from 


§ Of. infra. 

°The inadequacy of the energy of the stimulus to account for the 
actual reaction is pointed out by Woodrow who showed that the reaction 
time at the onset of a prolonged stimulus was the same as at the cessation 
of such a stimulus. There is no energy imparted to the organism by the 
cessation of the stimulus. Touching off the reaction, therefore, is not due 
to the stimulus but to internal conditions. Cf. above, p. 77. 





f 


VOLUNTARY ACTION AND THE ACT OF WILL 317 


a consideration of the facts that brought about the emotional 
outburst. What is it that exercises this control over the human 
mechanism when an attempt of this kind is made? Certainly 
it is not a kinesthetic sensation that exercises this control. It 
may result in kinesthetic sensations, but it is not possible to say 
that kinesthetic sensations are the forces that shuffle our ideas 
and turn our attention from one thing to another. 

5. In the conflict of impulses and desires that we have con- 
sidered above, we have found evidence of a distinct power and 
force that has every right to be termed volitional in character. 
Impulses and desires drive to action. Nevertheless, they do not 
always result in action. The reason for their failure is not always 
that they are counterbalanced by other impulses and desires. 
There is an inhibitory mechanism which has its roots in our 
intellectual life. This brings up before the mind ideals of con- 
duct whose tendency is to inhibit the action to which the im- 
pulses and desires may drive. Experience shows, however, that 
the ideals of conduct in a conflict of this nature have a natural 
tendency to steal away into the background of consciousness. 
Experience shows that there is an actual power and force to 
maintain them before the mind. What is it that is acting in this 
way? Is it a kinesthetic image? Is it a feeling of pleasure or 
of pain? No, it is a force that seems to flow from the personality 
itself that holds before the mind ideals that inhibit an activity 
that is contrary to their dictates. 

6. When a person has some serious mental trouble so that his 
previous plan of life must be given up and a new one made, the 
pilot of the human mechanism has considerable trouble and diffi- 
culty in working out a readjustment to life and its problems. 
Some have a tendency, as we have seen, to slip away from the 
reality and to do nothing. One may fight against it, and by sheer 
force break the shell that surrounds him. One may have a ten- 
dency to brood' mournfully over his unhappy lot. It takes an 
_ effort to do away with this useless melancholy, and to take up 
life’s duties and find interest and content in other lines. And 
after one has made a new plan of life it is not easy to adhere to 
it, however rational and reasonable it may be. It takes a power 


318 VOLITIONAL CONTROL — 


and force back of the personality to carry out the plan and come 
to a final and satisfactory readjustment to conditions as they are. 

Does a kinesthetic sensation coming from the twitching of the 
muscles of the shoulder or neck perform all of this for an indi- 
vidual? Is it done by feeling happy or feeling sad, tense or 
relaxed? No. It is a specific force or power that adjusts and 
readjusts the contrary and blind forces of human nature and 
makes them work harmoniously. If one considers these various 
points of evidence, one cannot escape the conclusion that there is 
something in our mental life to which we may give the term 
‘voluntary control.’’ 

The next question that we have to take up is the analysis of 
what this voluntary control is. 

The Act of Will.—Psychologists are divided on the question 
of the simplicity of the act of will. Some recognize a simple, 
unitary act. Others point to the complexity of all voluntary 
action. To think clearly on this point one must distinguish be- 
tween voluntary action and an act of will. A voluntary action 
is acomplex affair. One voluntary action differs profoundly from 
another precisely because it is complex and the elements of which 
it is composed are not always the same. A reaction-time experi- 
ment is not the same thing as a readjustment of our whole life 
after some serious failure, and yet both are voluntary. The pro- 
found difference between voluntary actions does not, however, 
exclude the presence in all of them of some one unchanging and 
identical element. We may ask ourselves, is there any evidence 
to show that in all voluntary action there is one unit control of 
the various forms of mental activity? Several considerations 
urge this conclusion upon us. 

First of all, each human being is one living unit organism. 
Many human beings exhibit also in their mental life a unit plan, 
in virtue of which all activity is subordinated to one dominant 
ideal. The stronger the personality, the more complete the sub- 
jection of everything in the mental and even physical life to this 
dominant ideal. The weaker the personality, the less complete 
is the subjection of his various activities to a unit plan of life. 
Unity of action means unity of control. 


VOLUNTARY ACTION AND THE ACT OF WILL 319 


Secondly, if we analyze our conscious experience in all of 
these forms of voluntary action, it seems to us that it is always 
one and the same ego that is active. There is a conscious unity 
of the personality that underlies all forms of voluntary action. 
It is the personality itself that accepts a task, that pays attention 
to one thing or another, that gives the fiat in reaction-time experi- 
ments, directs the attention in emotional control, maintains the 
ideals of conduct before the mind in any conflict of impulses 
and desires, and readjusts life to new conditions after painful 
disappointment, etc. 

It would thus seem that the act of will is a unit experience 
that enters into a complex, but is not in itself complex. Like 
all mental phenomena, it is an activity of the substrate of our 
mental life, of the ego, the psyche, the soul. It is an activity not 
of reception, but of reaction to stimuli and conditions. This re- 
action is not necessary as in a reflex action, or in pleasure or 
pain, but is perceived as different from any of these necessary 
reactions, and bears a characteristic peculiar to itself which we 
describe as that of an act of will. 

But, it may be said, if an act of will is a mental element, 
it must have its attributes that characterize it. It must have its 
quality, its intensity, its duration. Our next question, therefore, 
is, what are the attributes of will as a mental element? 

Attributes of Will as a Mental Element.—EHach one of the 
elements of our mental life has some specific characteristic that 
distinguishes it from every other element. The sensation of 
red has that peculiar quality and characteristic that we term red- 
ness, differentiating it from other colors, distinguishing it from 
sounds, tastes, etc. If now an act of will is a mental element, 
it, too, must have its quality. This quality is precisely its 
voluntary character. Some acts in our mental life certainly do 
have this characteristic of being voluntary. All serious resolu- 
tions about important affairs appear to us as voluntary. Definite 
decisions as to actions are felt by us to be voluntary. Decisions 
as to truth, however, do not appear as voluntary. The proposi- 
tion that I perceive to be true forces its truth upon me. Not so 
with actions which I have done and perceive to be good or bad. 


320 VOLITIONAL CONTROL 


No acts in our mental life, except those that are referred to the 
will, have this characteristic of being voluntary. 

Sensations, images, emotions, arise within us whether we will 
or no. We may produce them, and the act of choice by which we 
determine to seek them is voluntary. The sensations, the feclings, 
the images, in themselves, are not voluntary. 

Furthermore, all acts of will have degrees of intensity, rang- 
ing from mere velleities to absolute determinations to do some- 
thing, or to carry out a plan of action no matter what influences 
may contravene. Daily experience bears witness to the degrees 
of intensity of our acts of will. 

An act of will has also a certain duration. One must dis- 
tinguish the duration of the act of will itself from the persevera- 
tion of its effects. One may determine to do something at once 
or some time later. The time that it takes to determine, to make 
up one’s mind, is a short period, but not infinitesimal. The effects 
of this choice upon our mental life are perseverance in a reso- 
lution and endurance, but the duration of these effects is not 
the duration of the act of choice itself. The first attempt to 
measure the duration of the act of will was made by subtracting 
the time of reaction in which the subject was required to distin- 
guish between two stimuli from a compound reaction in which 
the subject had to make a choice. It was originally supposed 
that the remainder gave the duration of the act of will itself. 
It is probably not so. It, however, gives an upper limit. An act 
of will need not require longer than this interval, which was found 
to be sixty to eighty thousandths of a second.?® When one must 
choose between ten alternatives, this upper limit is raised to 
400 thousandths of a second. 

It would thus seem that the act of will is a mental element 
with its own quality, intensity, and duration. Let us now inquire 
more closely into the mode of operation of a voluntary fiat. The 
sphere in which this is best known is that of voluntary movement. 
A study of voluntary movement will give us a deeper insight into 
the steering mechanism of a human organism. 


2 Wundt, Grundziige der physiol, Psychol., fifth edition, III, p. 461. 


CHAPTER II 


VOLUNTARY MOVEMENT AND THE THEORY OF 
IDEOMOTOR ACTION 


In 1880, William James published in the Annwersary Memoirs 
of the Boston Society of Natural History, an essay on ‘‘The 
Feeling of Effort.’’! In this essay, and in the chapter on ‘‘ Will’’ 
in his Psychology, 1890, he maintained, but not without some 
ambiguity, that the immediate antecedent of a voluntary move- 
ment is an anticipatory kinesthetic image of the sensations in- 
volved in the execution of the movement itself. The main factor 
in the kinesthetie complex he regarded as sensations coming 
from the surfaces of the joints.” He looked upon it as absolutely 
certain that ‘‘Whether or no there be anything else in the mind 
at the moment when we consciously will a certain act, a mental 
conception made up of memory-images of these sensations, defin- 
ing which special act tt ts, must be there.’’8 

Further on* he modifies this reference to the sensations of 
movement and says that the mental cue for a movement may be 
either a resident kinesthetic image or a remote image, 7.€., one 
from some other sense organ. 

The necessity of resident kinesthetic images, says James, 
exists mainly at the commencement of the learning of a movement. 
The more practised we become in a movement, the more remote the 
antecedent imagery tends to be. And here slips in the ambiguity. 
The next step is to make it possible for the ‘‘idea of the end’”’ to 
make itself function as all-sufficient, and so to do the work of the 
articular sensations. And then he goes on to cite examples in 
which the idea of the end is expressed in terms which at least bear 
a conceptual and non-sensory or non-imaginal interpretation. 
This ambiguity in James’ own mind is a witness to the insuffi- 


1 Reprinted in his collected Hssays and Reviews, N. Y., 1920, pp. 151-219. 
2 Psychology, Vol. II, p. 489. 

* Op. cit., p. 492. 

‘Op. cit., p. 518. 


321 


322 VOLITIONAL CONTROL 


ciency of the ideomotor concept. For, had James attempted 
an analysis of this ‘‘idea of the end,’’ he would have been 
led to recognize the value of the intellectual concept in every 
voluntary act. 

Leaving aside the ambiguity of the latter part of James’ dis- 
cussion, let us ask ourselves the question: What is the evidence 
that a kinesthetic sensation is the necessary antecedent or cause 
of a voluntary movement? For this position found wide accept- 
ance after the publication of James’ essay on ‘‘The Feeling 
of Effort.’’ 

Thorndike wrote, in 1918:° ‘‘The theory of ideomotor action 
has been, for a generation, one of the stock ‘laws’ of orthodox 
psychology.’’ It is, therefore, worth while analyzing its evidence. 

We may split the problem into two: 

(a) What is the evidence that the immediate cause of a volun- 
tary action is a kinesthetic image? 

(b) What is the evidence that every idea has a native tendency 
to realize itself in action? 


A. A KIN2&STHETIC IMAGE AS THE CAUSE OF A 
VoLUNTARY MOVEMENT 


If one analyzes the evidence brought forward by James 
for his conclusion that a voluntary action is initiated by a kines- 
thetic image, we find it is based on two groups of facts: 

1. He cites several cases of anesthesia in which the patients 
had no control over their movements unless they could follow 
them with their eyes. 

2. He points out that similar conditions may be produced in 
hypnotic subjects. | 

He concludes, ‘‘ All these cases, whether spontaneous or ex- 
perimental, show the absolute need of guiding sensations of some 
kind for the successful carrying out of a concatenated series 
of movements.’”® 

Having found out the necessity of guiding sensations during a 

* Psychol. Rev., XX, p. 91. 


* Op. cit., p. 490. A foot note on page 491 points out that in some cases 
the movement cannot be started without the kinesthetic impression. 


THE THEORY OF IDEOMOTOR ACTION $23 


movement, he then, without any further intermediary evidence, 
concludes that the memory-images must be present in the moment 
of willing. 

Later evidence on this point comes from experiments such as 
those of Miss Downey on handwriting.? Miss Downey attempted 
‘to throw into relief the processes utilized in writing by eliminat- 
ing or embarrassing some particular control.’’ Thus, if a subject 
writes blindfolded, he no longer has the control of visual sensa- 
tions over his movements. If he writes with his left hand, the kin- 
zesthetic control acquired by the right hand is eliminated. Copying 
an image seen in a mirror, or attempting to write upside down, 
introduces still further complications. She found that some 
- subjects were very much embarrassed by a disturbance of the 
visual factor, and that these subjects were much more disturbed 
by writing under distractions such as silent or oral reading, ete. 
It thus would seem that the sensory cue for writing in.some sub- 
jects may be visual; in others kinesthetic. 

In another set of experiments the subjects were required to 
count by ones or twos, ete., on up to thirteen, and at a given 
signal to write their name or a simple phrase. In the intervals 
of counting there is a wealth of imagery, its amount varying 
with the difficulty of the task, and consisting in recurrent cues, 
each one of which produces a nervous set of the musculature 
which dies out gradually and springs into existence again with 
the recurrence of the cue. In most of the cases the subject re- 
ported a sensory cue of some sort as initiating the movement of 
writing. ‘‘The test furnished absolutely no introspective evi- 
dence for a non-sensory meaning-consciousness.’’ (P. 130.) Unfor- 
tunately, however, no introspective reports are given, and it is 
impossible to check this conclusion. That the subjects were 
conscious of the task they were to perform, that they accepted it, 
goes without saying. This consciousness of the task, neglected in 
Miss Downey’s report, may be, and no doubt was, present at times 
as an auditory image that was wnderstood by the subject. Or if 
it was not represented in imaginal times at all, it was neverthe- 


*June E. Downey, ‘“ Control Processes in Modified Handwriting: An 
Experimental Study,” Psychol. Monographs, 1908, Vol. IX, No. 1, p. 148. 


324 / VOLITIONAL CONTROL 


less present, dominating the whole situation, and was the prime 
factor in establishing the motor set of which she speaks, 

If one critically examines the evidence for the ideomotor 
theory of the origin of voluntary actions, one sees that James 
produced no evidence whatsoever in support of his position. 
Whatever evidence he produced merely tended to show that sen- 
sations of some kind are necessary for the awareness of a move- 
ment when it is going on, or for its proper execution. But this is 
not the problem. The question is whether or not a mental image, 
kinesthetic or visual, or any other kind, must be present in con- 
sciousness in order that the movement may be initiated. We shall 
see below that sensations from the moving member, or from the 
eyes, are necessary in order that a movement may be properly exe- 
euted. But what about the image that starts the movement? There 
is no evidence in psychological literature to prove its necessity. 
But certain writers, without critically analyzing the evidence, 
have assumed that James has proved his point. 

Studies, such as Miss Downey’s involve another fallacy: That 
of supposing that the control involved in a new or unaccustomed 
movement must be found also in the acquired movement. When 
one is called upon, for example, to write his name upside down, 
it is necessary for him to develop some kind of an idea of how his 
name would look if turned upside down and write it in accord- 
ance with the geometry of the problem, or an inverted image if 
he has the power of inverting his imagery. But most subjects, 
though practised in copying sensations, have no practice in con- 
trolling their handwriting by the laws of geometry or inverted 
visual images. Or if one attempts the familar laboratory experi- 
ment of mirror-drawing, a very little introspection will show 
him the presence of a distinct kinesthetic cue in directing his 
movements under this new form of procedure. But he is now 
learning a distinetly new visual-motor control. One has, by com- 
mon human inheritance, a codrdination between the eye and the 
muscles. This codrdination does not lead to the result in mirror- 
drawing. A new one must be acquired. Is it safe to assume that 
all the stages found in the execution of a new sensory-motor 
coordination are present in an habitual motor performance? 
Habit may be pictured as involving a simplification of nervous 


THE THEORY OF IDEOMOTOR ACTION 325 


pathways. If that is the case, experiments, such as Miss 
Downey’s, may not ‘‘throw into relief the control processes util- 
ized in writing,’’ but merely show us certain processes that come 
into play in learning new motor codrdinations whether or not 
they were ever present in the earlier. days when we commenced 
the laborious task of learning how to write. 


B. WHAT IS THE EVIDENCE THAT EVERY IDEA OF A MOVEMENT HAS 
A Native TENDENCY TO REALIZE ITSELF IN ACTION ? 


James maintains that ‘‘every representation of a movement 
awakens, in some degree, the actual movement which is its object ; 
and awakens it in a maximum degree whenever it is not kept from 
so doing by an antagonistic representation present simultane- 
ously to the mind.’”® | 

The evidence on which he bases this conclusion is as follows: 

1. If one analyzes his experience in a warm bed on a cold 
morning he will find that as soon as the idea comes to him, ‘‘ Hello! 
I must he here no longer,’’ at a lucky moment when no contradic- 
tory suggestion is present, that it at once produces its appropri- 
ate motor effects. The problem, according to James, is not to 
explain how an idea produces its effects, but why it does not. It 
will flow over into action with mechanical necessity unless hin- 
dered by an antagonistic idea. 

2. The popular games of mind-reading are in reality muscle 
reading, the idea expressing itself involuntarily in muscular 
contraction. 

Again we find the actual evidence that James brings forward 
far too slender to support the broad span of his sweeping 
generalization. 

Before examining the question further it is worth while not- 
ing that the ideomotor tendency of an idea is not essentially 
bound up with the problem of the necessity of a kinesthetic image 
for the initiating of a voluntary action. All ideas might have 
_ necessary motor tendencies and no voluntary action require a 
kinesthetic cue. 

Let us now attempt to go more thoroughly into the evidence 
for the motor tendency of ideas of action. 

§ Psychol., Vol. II, p. 526. 


326 VOLITIONAL CONTROL 


Can we say that some ideas of action have no tendency, when 
we discount the effect of inhibitions, to realize themselves in 
action? I know of no experimental evidence to settle this problem. 
We are, therefore, left to the analysis of everyday experience. 

It can searcely be doubted that the perception of an action 
gives us the idea of that action. When we pass along a crowded, 
busy thoroughfare, how many ideas of actions are impressed upon 
our minds. Some are walking in an opposite direction to our- 
selves. Some are getting on or off street cars. Some are standing 
on corners, others are entering stores. Newsboys are shouting 
the names of the daily papers, hucksters of their wares. Does 
the perception of these manifold movements produce tendencies 
in ourselves to get on and off the cars, to lean against the lamp- 
posts, to go into the stores, to shout the names of the evening 
papers or of the hucksters’ wares? The only answer we can give 
is that we are conscious of no such tendencies. 

But is there an unconscious tendency which remains uncon- 
scious because of our inhibitions? James might say that a per- 
son in polite society perceives no tendency to shout on the street, 
when he hears shouting, because of the inhibitions of his whole 
previous system of education and training. The tendencies are 
there, but they remain inhibited. They are inhibited also by 
present ideals and interests. I do not loiter when I see others 
loitering because I am walking with a definite end in view. The 
concept of inhibiting tendencies and the possibility that the ideo- 
motor effects may remain unconscious makes it very difficult to 
prove that there are even some ideas of action that have no 
motor resonance leading to their execution. 

Not only is this so, but when we look around for positive evi- 
dence that ideas of actions have motor effects, there is not a 
little to show that this is the ease and, furthermore, it is perfectly 
clear that we are wholly unconscious of the motor resonance of 
some ideas. 

Let us turn first to experimental psychology. 

Storring, in 1906, published® a piece of work that ean be 
evaluated in favor of the ideomotor theory of ideas. He had 





°« Experimentelle Beitriige zur Lehre vom Gefiihl,” Archiv. fiir die ges. 
Peychol., VI, pp. 316-356. 


THE THEORY OF IDEOMOTOR ACTION 327 


his subjects exert a maximal pressure on a dynamometer under 
the influence of three types of instruction: 

(a) Simple preparation: React with a maximum pressure 
on hearing the word ‘‘now’’ which followed two seconds after 
‘‘oet ready.’’ 

(b) Sensory preparation: At the words ‘‘get ready’’ fixate 
the image of ‘‘now’’ with the thought in mind of reacting at 
once on hearing ‘‘now.’’ 

(c) Motor preparation: At the word ‘‘now’’ innervate the 
muscles to be used in the reaction. 

The results showed that the intensity of contraction for the 
sensory preparation was 21.6 per cent.; for the motor 71.2 per 
cent. greater than for the simple. 

Seeing that in both the sensory and motor preparation the 
idea of the movement was brought more vividly before the mind, 
its tendency to flow over into action is expressed by a stronger 
pressure on the dynamometer. 

His pupil, Rose, in 1913,?° working with a spring ergograph, 
obtained similar, but not such clear results for the influence of 
the idea on the intensity of contraction. He had four tasks: 

1. Simple preparation—no definite instructions. 

2. Sensory preparation: Pay attention mainly to the sound 
of the bell. 

3. Motor preparation: Image clearly the movement about to 
be made. | 

4, Image the movement and at the same time innervate the 
muscles to be used. 

The third instruction is of the type requisite to test the 
ideomotor theory of ideas. It resulted in a clearly marked short- 
ening of the reaction time, but only a tendency to a stronger 
reaction was evident. 

Turning to pathology, we have certain phenomena which, 
though not thoroughly understood, would seem to bear out the 
-ideomotor theory of ideas. I refer to the conditions known as 
echolalia and echopraxia, now assigned, under the influence of 
Kraepelin, to the syndrome of dementia precox. Certain pre- 


«Der Einfluss der Unlustgefiihle auf den motorischen Effekt der 
Willenshandlungen,” Archiv. fiir die ges. Psychol., XXVIII, pp. 94-182. 


828 VOLITIONAL CONTROL 


cox patients, when addressed a question, instead of answering 
it repeat the last words of what they have just heard. This would 
find an explanation, on the assumption of the ideomotor theory, 
that every idea of an action tends to reproduce itself in reality. 
Normally we do not perceive the tendency to say the words we 
hear because, owing to the inhibitions of present tendencies and 
past habits, the incipient motor impulse dies out before it can 
get to the conscious level. When, however, mental degeneration 
proceeds far enough, inhibitions crumble, normal interests fade, 
and the motor tendency realizes itself in action. Echopraxia 
seems even more to bear out the ideomotor theory of ideas than 
echolalia. Precox patients will imitate, in an apparently reflex 
manner, the action that another performs before them even 
though such a performance looks to be, and is, perfectly aimless 
and foolish. Clap your hands in front of them and they clap. 
Roll your forearms around each other and they will do 
the same, and once having started they will often continue with- 
out the apparent ability to stop a rhythmic movement they have 
begun. In these cases, to all external appearances at least, the 
patient gets from perception the idea of a movement and not 
only feels a tendency to perform it, but actually carries it 
into execution. 

That at least some ideas, all of which are not ideas of move- 
ment, express themselves in involuntary muscular contractions, 
was shown in the very ingenious study made by Pfungst of Clever 
Hans, a horse that attracted the attention of all Germany by 
his wonderful feats of addition, his apparent ability to read, to 
tell time, discriminate colors, ete. Pfungst, by an ingenious 
series of experiments, showed (1) that the actions of Hans were 
dependent on his questioner knowing the answer to the problem 
proposed; (2) that it depended on Hans being able to see his 
questioner, and finally, (8) he showed that the cue was given 
unintentionally by involuntary movements on the part of 
the questioner." 

He then, in the laboratory, impersonated Hans and studied 
the involuntary movements expressive of certain simple ideas. 

uQOskar Pfungst, Clever Hans, trans. by Carl Rahn, New York, 1911, 
pp. vi + 274. 


THE THEORY OF IDEOMOTOR ACTION — 329 


‘‘Very slight involuntary movements of the head and eyes 
which showed but little individual variation, and always occurred 
when the subject began to fix upon the concept, were the signs 
which [ used as cues. As in the case of the movements expressive 
of the release of tension, which I discussed above, these move- 
ments, too, occurred without the subject being aware of them 
(except in those rare cases in which they had once or twice been 
especially pronounced). Indeed, it was very difficult, and in some 
cases almost impossible, for those persons whom I had initiated 
into the secret, to inhibit them voluntarily. ‘Up’ and ‘down,’ 
‘right’ and ‘left,’ were expressed by movements of head or 
eye in those directions; ‘forward’ by a forward movement of 
the head; ‘back’ by a corresponding movement. ‘Yes’ was 
accompanied by a slight nod of the head; ‘no’ by two to four 
rapid turnings of the head to either side. ‘Zero’ was expressed 
by a movement of the head deseribing an oval in the air. Indeed, 
it was even possible to discover whether the subject had con- 
ceived of a printed or a written zero, for the characteristics of 
both were revealed in the head movements. I was later able to 
verify this graphically. With Ch. as subject, I made 70 per 
cent. correct interpretations in a total of twenty tests; with von 
A. as subject, 72 per cent. in a total of twenty-five tests. And, 
finally, I was able to interpret the signs without any errors 
at all. It was not absolutely necessary to look directly at the 
subject’s face. Even though I focused a point quite to one side, so 
that the image of the subject’s face would fall upon a peripheral 
portion of the retina, I still was able to make 89 per cent. 
correct interpretations in a total of twenty tests. This is not 
astonishing after all, when we recall that the periphery of the 
retina possesses a relatively high sensitivity for movement im- 
pressions, although its chromatic sensitivity is very low.’’™ 

Moreover, if an agreement is made that the observer will 
indicate ‘‘right’’ by moving his arm down, ‘‘left’’ by the opposite 
movement, the thinker, while commencing with the natural ex- 
pressive movements to right and left, gradually forsakes them 
for up and down movements of the eyes or head. 
~~ 4 Op, cit., pp. 106-108. 

22 


330 VOLITIONAL CONTROL 


In a footnote, on page 107, the author very properly points 
out that these experiments do not conclusively prove that every 
thought process whatsoever is accompanied by some kind of 
muscular movement. Furthermore, it is well to note that the 
movements in question are movements of expression and not 
of execution. 

It is, however, very interesting to learn that a number of 
simple ideas have typical motor expressions, and that the sub- 
ject is not aware of the existence of the expressive movements. 
Some years ago, I carried out an experiment in which I tried to 
guess what the subject was thinking about, whether spades, clubs, 
hearts or diamonds. The experiment was continued on different 
days for nearly a thousand guesses. When looking at the sub- 
ject’s face I was able to get a percentage of correct guesses that 
would not have oceurred by chance more than once in a thousand 
times. But when not looking at the subject’s face my per- 
centage of correct guesses fell to about the probable ratio of one 
in four. The subject was not aware of any movements nor was 
I conscious of the basis of my own judgment, though I attrib- 
uted it at the time to the subconscious reading of involuntary 
lip movements. 

To sum up: The theory of ideomotor action as propounded 
by James involves two distinct elements. One, that a kinesthetic 
image must be the cause of voluntary movement. For this we 
found no evidence whatsoever. The second element is that the 
idea of a movement tends to realize itself in action. That this 
is universally true, is not demonstrated.. It would, however, 
offer a satisfactory explanation of certain pathological phenomena 
if it were true. There is, moreover, strong evidence to show that 
some ideas have typical movements of expression, involuntary 
and unconscious, and common to a number of subjects. 

If, therefore, the ideomotor theory of ideas be limited to the 
statement that some ideas have characteristic motor expressions, 
and some and perhaps all ideas of movement have a definite ten- 
deney to flow over into action, it may be looked upon as the 
expression of the facts as now known to psychology. 


CHAPTER III 


VOLUNTARY MOVEMENT AND THE THEORY OF 
CONCEPTUAL CONTROL 


In 1906,! Professor Woodworth, of Columbia, outlined a 
theory of the cause of a voluntary movement which we may term 
the theory of conceptual control. The conclusion of this study 
is that ‘‘a naked thought can perfectly well perform its func- 
tion of starting the motor machinery in action and determining 
the point and object of its application.’’ (P. 392.) 

Instead, therefore, of a kinesthetic image being required, 
he maintains that this naked thought or concept of what is to 
be done may be the immediate causal antecedent of a voluntary 
act. This is opposed to the position of James, at least as his 
view is ordinarily interpreted. 

The evidence on which Woodworth bases his conclusion is 
mainly the introspections of trained observers. He called upon 
his subjects to perform three classes of movements: (1) ‘‘Free 
movements, that is, such as communicated no motion to any 
external object, such as wagging the jaw, winking, opening the 
closed eyes, flexing or separating the fingers, and flexing the 
foot.’’ (L.c., p. 357.) (2) Instrumental movements, that is, such 
as involve the use of some instrument: Scissors, forceps, or dyna- 
mometer. (38) Choice of movements: Touch any object seen in 
the foreground, any part of the body, flex or extend the fingers, 
react to a sound with a movement of the hand or foot. 

The result of careful introspection was that, in a large por- 
tion of the cases, no imagery of any sort appeared in conscious- 
ness. It was perfectly possible to think of a movement without 
experiencing any kinesthetic image of it. He considered the 
_ question of verbal imagery as the possible antecedent. By this 
2“The Cause of a Voluntary Movement,” by Robert Sessions 


Woodworth, Studies in Philosophy and Psychology by Former Students of 
Charles Edward Garman, Boston and New York, 1906, pp. 351-392. 


331 


332 VOLITIONAL CONTROL 


he means some kind of expression of the task in inner speech. 
He ruled this out as an adequate cause of the movement because 
he found such imagery, when present, too general to account for 
the particular individual movement made. 

‘‘T intend to do a certain act; my intention is particularized ; 
if whatever imagery may be present is less particular than my 
intention and the act which results, then the image is not the ade- 
quate cue of the act.’’ (LD. c., p. 3838.) 

‘‘In the instances in which verbal imagery was reported 
by my subjects, it was sometimes ludicrously inadequate as a 
distinguishing mark of the movement that was thought of. ‘I 
am going to move the thing from here to there’ might apply to a 
thousand movements; the words cannot possibly have been the 
determinant of the particular movement made.’’ (JL. c., p. 383.) 

The argument so far is negative: Imagery is not the ade- 
quate cause of a movement: First, because it is sometimes wholly 
lacking; second, because when present for one reason or another 
it is inadequate, and, therefore, cannot fully account for the effect. 

What is the adequate cause? Woodworth maintains that it 
is twofold: (1) The thought of the movement to be made; (2) 
a set or adjustment or temporary disposition of the nervous sys- 
tem. The evidence that a thought is actually involved is not 
clearly brought out by Woodworth, but only stated. It lies, how- 
ever, implicitly in his data. Thus, if the only imagery one has in 
mind of the phrase ‘‘I am going to move the thing from here to 
there’’ is verbal, the wnderstanding of this phrase must also be 
present in his mind. The understanding of the task is essential, 
and is often present as such, with nothing but verbal imagery as 
an accompaniment. I rather think it would often be present 
alone, as Woodworth implies later, when he speaks of a naked 
thought as sometimes the only antecedent cue. Verbal imagery 
without meaning would not determine anything. Express a 
task to a subject in an unknown language and let him repeat 
the words in parrot-like fashion, and it will not lead to the 
desired result. An understanding of what one is required to 
do is the essential prerequisite, and must be present in every 
case. This understanding or meaning or thought process must, 


THE THEORY OF CONCEPTUAL CONTROL — 333 


therefore, be present in order that any movement at all may 
be determined. 

Over and above this Woodworth maintains that there must 
be a motor set. The introspective reports of his subjects recount 
the fading from consciousness not only of all imagery, but also 
of the thought process itself, just prior to the movement, the 
situation having resulted in an inner motor adjustment which 
is a partial determinant of the act that is to follow. 

I can confirm the presence of this motor set from my own 
introspections in reaction-time experiments. It is especially evi- 
dent in reaction experiments without a preparatory signal. It 
is a labile thing continually crumbling and being reformed under 
the determination to react in accordance with the task one has 
understood and accepted. It seems capable of being held in per- 
feet condition for only a brief period of time, and then falls 
apart to be built up again under the influence of the concept of 
the task which hovers often in the background of consciousness. 
It comes spontaneously to a point, as it were; and it seems to one 
that if the signal to react coincides with this point, that the reac- 
tion takes place promptly ; but that if the signal to react comes 
when the set has crumbled, that a short building-up process takes 
place before one can react, and thus, the reaction time is delayed. 

The principal points of the theory of conceptual control are 
as follows: 

(1) Neither kinesthetic imagery nor any other kind of im- 
agery is necessary for the initiation of a voluntary movement. It 
may be present, but if so, it is a non-essential, or perhaps, use- 
less auxiliary. 

(2) The efficient cause of a voluntary movement is twofold: 

(a) The understanding of what is to be done. 
(b) A neuromuscular set, specific to the movement to 
be performed. 

(3) Guidance by sensations coming from the members of the 
_ body by which the movement is executed. We have not analyzed 
Woodworth’s evidence on this point because a section will be 
devoted to the problem later. 

To the two factors mentioned by Woodworth as elements in 


334 VOLITIONAL CONTROL 


the efficient cause of a voluntary movement should be added a 
third, viz., volition itself. A task must not only be understood, 
it must also be accepted in order that a human being may execute 
it. This acceptance is a piece of volition, a definite mental experi- 
ence, distinct from the understanding of the task and the result- 
ant motor set. To neglect it in a study of voluntary action is to 
try to play Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark. 


ANGELL’S CRITICISM OF THE THEORY OF CONCEPTUAL CONTROL 


Professor Angell objected to the theory of conceptual control 
on three grounds. 

1. ‘‘All the movements examined were too well-mastered, 
too habitual, to throw fairly into the foreground the sensory- 
ideational elements emphasized in gaining control of them.’’? 

This objection implies that one may study the cause of an 
habitual movement to better advantage by confining his atten- 
tion to non-habitual and unlearned movements. It assumes that 
all the factors present in learning a new motor coordination are 
also present in the well-learned and habitual movement, but have 
become unconscious. We have referred to this concept in dis- 
cussing the work of Miss Downey.* Angell’s assumption at all 
events is not to be admitted without demonstration. It seems 
likely that just as the supernumerary movements in performing 
a voluntary act dwindle with practice down to the bare essentials, 
so also the conscious elements in the initiation and control of a 
voluntary movement are simplified by frequent repetition. To 
find elements present in the learning of a movement would not 
guarantee their presence in the habitual performance. If then 
we are going to study the conscious antecedents of our ordinary 
everyday actions, it is necessary to study these actions themselves. 
And when we do, the causative influence of the kinesthetic image 
dwindles to vanishing proportions. 

Hmbryology tells us a great deal about the way our organs 
are formed, but it would not do to argue, for instance, that be- 
cause the truncus arteriosus of the human embryo deploys into 


*Jowrnal of Philos. Psychol. and Scientific Methods, 1906, ITI, p- 641. 
* Cf. supra, p. 323 ff 


THE THEORY OF CONCEPTUAL CONTROL = 335 


two ventral and two dorsal aorte with six pairs of connecting 
branches, that therefore, we should, by very careful dissection, 
be able to demonstrate all of these derivatives in the adult 
human being. 

2. ‘‘The occasional inability to detect sensuous forerunners of 
the motor act,’’ says Angell, ‘‘did not mean that its only cause was 
a naked thought, but simply that the verbal imagery of the task 
was present, which is but one of the various forms in which the 
remote idea of a movement may be expressed.”’ 

Angell overlooks the consideration given by Woodworth to 
the inadequacy of the verbal image. ‘‘ Verbal imagery’’ is the 
refuge of sensationalists who attempt to explain all our mental 
‘life in pure sensory terms. When one is reading a book he may 
not have visual images accompanying every word, but who can 
deny the continuity of the flow of words? What are words but 
sounds, and what are sounds but sensations? Thus, they say, 
don’t you see how sensations account fully for our mental life? 
If this were only an adequate explanation, how fortunate the stu- 
dent would be, and how easy the acquisition of a language. Learn 
to pronounce it and you could read and understand. But alas! 
that is not the case. We can pronounce without understanding 
and understand without pronouneing. Verbal imagery, as a mere 
flatus vocis, accounts for nothing. If verbal imagery is present 
and the only sensory material present, we can be sure of two 
things: (1) The verbal imagery is understood. (2) The mean- 
ing of the verbal imagery is a non-sensuous mental state. By 
thus having recourse to the flatus vocis, Angell admits what he 
denies in the objection that follows: 

3. ‘*The doctrine of naked thoughts is a psychological heresy. 
There are no such things as thoughts, and therefore, what is not 
eannot be the cause of that which is.”’ 

We shall answer this objection by pointing briefly to some 
of the evidence in favor of the existence of imageless mental 
concepts. 

Imageless Concepts.—Owing to the growth of their science 
out of physiology, psychologists inherited a certain timorousness 
that prevented them for many years from launching out into 


336 VOLITIONAL CONTROL 


the sea of thought. They investigated the sensations so persis- 
tently and conscientiously that it became impossible for them to 
see anything but what absorbed their interest. And so, when 
some years after the rise of scientific psychology, such men as 
Kilpe and Biihler and Woodworth commenced to talk of non- 
sensory mental content, the ears of the orthodox psychologists 
were offended by what they looked upon as a rash and unwar- 
ranted innovation. It will be impossible for us to outline here 
all the extensive literature that has appeared on this subject. 
But the sensationalists have experienced even more and more 
difficulty in attempting to encompass within the limits of their 
theory the facts that modern psychology has brought to light. 
They have dealt with the situation mainly by denial, as Angell 
does in the objection referred to above. Their method has been 
to make elaborate introspections of sensory experiences and point 
out that they ean find no thought processes whatsoever, but many 
forms of imagery; and refer all evidence to the contrary to 
inadequate introspection and analysis. If one, however, examines 
one’s own reports, one finds the evidence of what one denies, or 
reports under a nondescript name, such as ‘‘mood.’’* There is 
no real disagreement as to the facts of introspection, when one 
brushes away the attempts of the sensationalists to cloud what 
they themselves have found. The question is not, however, merely 
one of introspection against introspection, but there is, as we 
shall see, experimental evidence on the point. 

Since the question before us now arises out of the problem 
of understanding the verbal instructions or the verbal imagery 
antecedent to a voluntary act, let us confine our attention to a 
few experiments on reading, on the understanding of proposi- 
tions and the perception of words. 

One of the earliest pieces of experimental work on this prob- 
lem was an investigation of the flow of thought in reading. It 
has long been a serious problem with logicians to account for 

*For instances of what is referred to here see T. V. Moore: “ The 
Process of Abstraction,” University of California, Pub. in Psychol., Vol. I, 


No. 2. “Image and Meaning in Memory and Perception,” Psychol. Mono- 
graphs, 1919, Vol. XXVIL. 


THE THEORY OF CONCEPTUAL CONTROL — 337 


the continuity of the thought processes in reading. The flow 
of thought in attentive reading is undoubtedly continuous. What 
is it that continues? It is not the visual imagery. This appears 
here and there like the pictures in a more or less profusely illus- 
trated book. This was the object of the experiments just referred 
to. Taylor’ had his subjects read a passage and check the points 
where a visual image appeared. The sparseness of the checks 
made it evident that visual images could not constitute the con- 
tinuity of the thought processes. Furthermore, the more familiar 
one became with the meaning of the text by rereading, the fewer © 
the number of checks, that is to say, the greater the reduction of 
the imagery. Erdmann does not shrink from the position that the 
continuity of the thought is merely the flow of words. But if this 
were so, there could be no difference between reading and under- 
standing. But there evidently is such a difference. English 
logicians have constructed two mental worlds, a psychological 
world of images, and a logical world of thoughts. But after all, 
there is only one mind that both images and thinks. It is, there- 
fore, with interest that one turns from the problem of reading 
to the problem of the understanding of sentences. This was thor- 
oughly investigated by Biihler.® 

Buhler gave his subjects such questions as the following to 
consider and answer by a simple yes or no: 

When Eucken speaks of a world-historical apperception, do 
you understand what he means? 

Was the Pythagorean maxim known to the Middle Ages? 

Can you go from here to Berlin in seven hours ? 

Was Eucken right when he thought: Even the limitations of 
knowledge could not become conscious if man himself did not 
in some way reach out beyond them ? 

Can you calculate the velocity of a freely falling body? 

His subjects reported to him what they experienced on read- 

*“ Ueber das Verstehen von Worten und Sitzen,” Zeitschrift fiir 
' Psychologie, 1906, Vol. XL, pp. 225-251. 
°Karl Biihler, “Tatsachen und Probleme zu einer Psychologie der 


Denkvoginge,” Archiv. fiir d. ges. Psychol., 1907, IX, pp. 297-365; 1908, 
XII, pp. 1-122. 


338 VOLITIONAL CONTROL 


ing these sentences, and in arriving at their answer, yes or no. 
He then raised, first of all, the question: What are the con-. 
stituent elements of our thought processes? We cannot answer 
such questions without thinking. What transpires in our mind 
when we think? There are first of all the sensations involved in ° 
reading; but this is by no means all. There are also sporadic 
images of the objects themselves or the words. There are various 
feelings and emotional phenomena and those peculiar mental 
experiences of doubt, astonishment, reflection, ete., to which 
Marbe gave the name Bewusstseinslagen. But over and above 
these, there are elements more constant, more essential to the 
thinking process, specific mental experiences without sensory qual- 
ity or intensity, but which have degrees of clearness, certainty, 
liveliness; and these are the thoughts themselves. The essential 
elements of thinking are thoughts. ‘‘ What enters consciousness 
in such shreds, so sporadically and in such a wholly accidental 
manner, as images in our thinking, can never be regarded as 
the warp and woof of the well-knit, unbroken fabric of our 
thought.’’? 

Let the reader attempt to answer Bihler’s questions for him- 
self and see whether or not his conscious experience is made up 
of the muscular thrills of kinesthesis, the more or less faded 
colors of visual imagery, tones, smells, tastes, feelings of pleasure 
and pain, tension and relaxation, excitement and depression, 
mere doubt or wonder or attention to something in general; or 
whether or not, over and above all this, he thinks of specific 
meanings and their relations; in a word, is thinking really made 
up of thoughts? If one thinks that his whole experience is sensory, 
let him translate Buhler’s questions into pure sensory qualities, 
and try to make someone who has not seen the original even 
understand the question. 

We do not, therefore, understand by imagining, but by 
thinking.® 

" Archiv. f.-d. ges. Psychol., IX, :p: 317. 

*For a consideration of the apparently contradictory evidence from 


the Cornell laboratory see: T. V. Moore, “Image and Meaning in Memory 
énd Perception,” Psychol. Mon., Vol. XXVII, pp. 2, 242 ff. 


THE THEORY OF CONCEPTUAL CONTROL — 339 


But words are simpler than complex propositions, and words 
representing concrete objects that may be seen and handled, 
would give perhaps results more favorable to the sensationalist’s 
position. 

With this in view, I measured the reaction time of subjects 
to the meaning of words such as lamp, scissors, axe, ete.° This 
reaction time, to the simple unanalyzed meaning, was compared 
with that to the visual image of the object, a kinesthetic image 
of the object and a concept of the object’s use. The average 
reaction time to meaning was less than that to a visual image and 
much less than that to a kinesthetic image. In general, the reae- 
tion time to the concept of use is less than to the kinesthetic 
image. In order to study verbal images, pictures were used, and 
the subjects had to react, now to the meaning of a picture, now to 
the name. The average reaction to the meaning was shorter than 
to the name. ' 

What one can react to must be a definite psychological experi- 
ence. It cannot be a nonentity as Angell maintains. It cannot 
be identified with the imagery that arises because it comes before 
the imagery. The meaning process, therefore, is a definite psy- 
chological experience non-sensory, sui generis. 

It has also been shown by Agnes McDonough" that a mean- 
ing can form one term of an association. It must, therefore, be a 
definite mental structure. For the bond of association unites 
definite structures, not a structure and a function, much less a 
structure and a psychological nonentity. 

What then is the nature of the ideas involved in voluntary 
action? To return to the verbal imagery, ‘‘ I am going to move 
the thing from here to there.’’ From the experiments we have 
reported it is evident that this can be no mere flatus vocis. These 
words have a meaning. It is this non-sensory, conceptual mean- 

°T. V. Moore, “The Temporal Relations of Meaning and Imagery,” 
Psychol. Review, 1915, XXII, pp. 177-225. “ Image and Meaning,” Psychol. 
_ Rev., 1917, XXIV, pp. 318-322. “Image and Meaning in Memory and 
Perception,” Psychol. Mon., XXVII, No. 2. 

to“ The Development of Meaning,” Psychol. Monographs, 1919, Yol. 
XX VII. 


340 VOLITIONAL CONTROL 


ing which determines the act. I know what ‘‘here,’’ ‘‘there’’ 
and ‘‘thing’’ mean in the present situation. This knowledge, 
plus the determination expressed by ‘‘I am going,’’ determines 
the act. And so in all voluntary actions the fundamental and 
essential thing is to know what one intends to do. The value of 
kinesthesis as an adjunct is problematical, but the knowledge is 
evidently essential. 

But how ean an intellectual mental state be a determining 
factor in a concrete movement? It is not necessary to understand 
the how to be sure of the is. It is Just as impossible for anyone 
to see how a kinesthetic image, which after all is something 
psychical, ean be the adequate or inadequate cause of a movement ; 
and it is not possible to show that it is. 


FURTHER EVIDENCE ON THE THEORY OF CONCEPTUAL CONTROL 


Burnett attempted" a crucial test of what he termed the 
classical theory of volition. He found that he could execute 
movements much more rapidly than he could imagine their exe- 
cution in either visual or kinesthetic terms. Furthermore, the 
variation in rate from each other among the different kinds of 
movement is ten times greater for the actual than for the kines- 
thetically imaged movements. This latter fact would indicate 
that the kinesthetic image cannot determine the rate of movement. 

Burnett’s conclusions are much weakened by the fact that 
he himself was his only subject. Angell also objected that ‘‘no 
defender of the ‘classical theory’ has ever contended that a pre- 
monitory image definitely precedes each step in a series of well-. 
established codrdinations like tapping.’’** If, however, the kines- 
thetic cue fully determines the movement, it should also deter- 
mine its rate. Burnett’s experiments would indicate that there 
can be no correlation between the rate of tapping and the rapidity 
of an imaged series of movements. If the kinesthetic image has 
anything to do with the rate, Angell, or any other supporter of 

4 Charles Theodore Burnett, “ An Experimental Test of the Classical 
Theory of Volition,” Studies in Philos. and Psychol. by Former Students of 


Chas. Ed. Garman, Boston and New York, 1906, pp. 393-401. 
“Journal of Philos. Psychol. and Sc. Methods, 1906, III, p. 643. 


THE THEORY OF CONCEPTUAL CONTROL = 341 


the classical theory, would do a service to psychology by indica- 
ting how; and if it does not, what sensory cue adequately deter- 
mines the rate? 

Thorndike made two attempts'* to extend still further the 
evidence for Woodworth’s theory of conceptual control. His 
discussion unfortunately failed to hold clearly apart the two 
very distinct problems of the conceptual control of voluntary 
action and the tendency of an idea to flow over into appropriate 
motor channels. 

He brought forward, however, a couple of considerations that 
should be borne in mind by anyone who makes the attempt to 
decide between James and Woodworth. 

I. ‘‘If I say to one, ‘I shall name an act; when I name it, 
will to do it or will not to do it. Take a pencil and write your 
name,’ and then ask those who willed to write their names, ‘what 
was in your mind when you willed to write?’ I shall by some 
be told, ‘An image of myself writing my name,’ or ‘A visual 
image of my name as written.’ But I shall, on asking those who 
willed not to, what was in their minds when they willed not to, 
be told by some of them also precisely the same thing.’’** 

Thorndike argues from this that the image came as a conse- 
quence of the idea ‘‘write my name’’ rather than as a cause of 
the writing thereof. Assuming that the idea of a movement 
produces the appropriate kinesthesis of its execution, the test 
clearly shows that this kinesthesis does not necessarily result 
in the movement. Whether the idea is present in imaginal or 
conceptual terms, nothing results without a fiat which deter- 
mines the action. 

II. We ean will acts, the images of whose resident sensations 
are impossible. Most people do not know, and some years ago 
psychologists did not know, that the eye in reading moves across 
the page with a series of jerks. If you are told to read a line, 
turning your eye smoothly from right to left, you image a smooth 

*%“ Mental Antecedents of Voluntary Movements,” Journal of Philos. 
Psychol. and Sc. Methods, 1907, IV, pp. 40-42; “Ideomotor Action,” 


Psychol. Rev., 1913, XX, pp. 91-106. 
“4 L. c., 1907, p. 40. 


342 VOLITIONAL CONTROL 


movement, you execute a jerky one. No one really images his 
eye movements in reading. We conceive the end and execute it 
without being conscious of the necessary movements by any ade- 
quate sensory representation. 


SUMMARY 


The discussion so far has made it apparent that: 

(1) We have non-sensory mental states which may be termed 
concepts or thoughts. 

(2) These concepts or thoughts are necessary in the deter- 
mination of what we are going to do. We cannot perform volun- 
tary acts without knowing what we intend to do. 

(3) The concept or thought of an action is not sufficient of 
itself to bring it to execution. | 

(4) The kinesthetic image does not appear in consciousness 
in the execution of many voluntary actions. Its value, therefore, 
is problematical, and demands a further study. 

(5) Besides the representation of an action there must be a 
fiat, an act of volition which is the final determinant of a 
voluntary act. 

(6) This fiat produces a neuromuscular codrdination which 
may be maintained for a greater or less length of time in varying 
degrees of readiness for immediate execution, whenever the fiat 
involves a delay that is to be terminated at the giving of a pre- 
arranged signal. 

Let us now turn to the consideration of the neuromuscular 
coordination and study how and in what way definite codrdina- 
tions of this nature are at the disposal of the organism. 


CHAPTER IV 


KINETIC UNITS IN THE SERVICE OF VOLUNTARY 
ACTION 


Ir 1s clearly evident that by a simple fiat of the will one 
cannot put himself in equal readiness for every kind of action. 
If one, who has never learned to play the violin, be given that 
instrument and be told to be ready to strike out boldly when 
the piano has played a few preliminary bars, how different the 
result from the attitude struck by the trained violinist under 
the same instruction. The one has nothing to call upon, the other 
has a neuromuscular coordination at his disposal, built up by 
years of practice. 

This neuromuscular coordination may be termed more briefly 
a kinetic unit. ‘There is one or more kinetic units of a more 
or less specific sort at the basis of every habitual action. Actions 
which are not in themselves habitual are made up of a number 
of such units that are thrown together to meet the immediate 
situation. Examples of such common units are walking, stand- 
ing, sitting, writing, grasping, lifting, bending, ete. 

The question now arises, what is the origin of these units? 
To what extent are they hereditary, and to what extent acquired? 

It is only recently that we have obtained definite and reliable 
information on this subject, due to the labors of Professor John 
B. Watson, formerly of Johns Hopkins University. Watson 
undertook the systematic observation of children born in the ma- 
ternity wards of Johns Hopkins Hospital. The results are pub- 
lished in an article by his student, Margaret Gray Blanton + and 
in a summary in the seventh chapter of Watson’s Psychology 
from the Standpoint of a Behawworist. 

From the observations of Watson and Mrs. Blanton, it is 
clear that the child has at its disposal a number of ready-made 


1“'The Behavior of the ITuman Infant during the First Thirty Days 
of Life,” Psychol. Review, 1917, XXIV, pp. 456-483. 





343 


344 VOLITIONAL CONTROL 


kinetic units at birth. From the moment the child is born, it 
reacts to certain stimuli; not with random movements, but with 
definite motor codrdinations. Leaving aside such reflexes as 
sneezing, hiccoughing, yawning, suckling, the child has, by 
common human inheritance, complicated motor ecodrdinations 
such as are used in the voluntary actions of later hfe. 
It does not have to acquire these kinetic units by the trial and 
error method of developing habits, but they are present at birth 
or develop somewhat later without any apparent labor of 
acquisition. Take, for instance, such a complicated motor coor- 
dination as following a light or a moving object with the eyes. 

Though this codrdination of the eye movements in some new- 
born infants was imperfect, this was not the rule. A large per- 
centage of the children observed would fixate a light at birth. 

‘‘Subjects 8., A., M., F., and J., gazed at the light above 
the birth bed and also followed a moving hand. Subjects F. and 
K., neither of whom gazed at light or followed hand at birth, were 
seen to do both on the eighth day. Subject K., at eight days, 
subject R., at ten, and subject L., at twenty-six days focused first 
on one and then on another face. . . . A dim light, moved slowly 
at half a metre, was followed by subjects eight hours, eighteen 
hours, thirty-six hours, and 3, 4, 5, 6, 14, 15, 21, and 30 days of 
age. Subjects which did not follow were aged 9 hours, 3, 5, and 
14 days; seventeen in all were tested.’ 

Grasping is a coordinate movement. One child was seen at 
birth to spread his fingers and close his hands four times in 
succession. We know no reason a priori why the fingers of a new- 
born child should act together rather than in a random incoor- 
dinate manner. But they do not. Not only is the grasping 
movement a native endowment, but it has such strength that 
some children on the first day of their life will support their 
whole weight with one hand. It is interesting to note that this 
reflex is more easily elicited from an angry child. 

The child does not have to learn to locate the spot of every 
painful stimulus and how to get arm or leg to the point of irri- 
tation in order to brush it away. 


? Mrs. Blanton, I. ¢., p. 462. 


KINETIC UNITS OF VOLUNTARY ACTION = 345 


““Tf a baby lies on its back with legs extended, and the inner 
surface of one knee is lightly pinched, the opposite foot is brought 
up almost with the regularity seen in the reflex frog.’’ 

In most cases, however, preliminary movements are made, 
and it takes several seconds to locate the stimulus. 

In spite of the demands of the recapitulation theory, a baby 
lowered in water at body temperature makes no swimming move- 
ments, but gives violent expression of fear and makes unecoor- 
dinated slashing movements of the hands and feet. 

It is thus seen that a number of kinetic units are ready made 
at birth. Most, however, remain to be acquired. In his eighth 
chapter, on the ‘‘Genesis and Retention of Explicit Bodily 
-Habits,’’ Watson gives us a very interesting account of the eye- 
hand-mouth reaction. Experiments were commenced on the 
eightieth day with a stick of candy dangling before a child’s eyes. 
When she did not take it, the candy was put into her mouth. The 
habit of grasping the candy and putting it into her mouth was 
acquired part by part. For fourteen days she never even grasped 
‘the candy. The candy was then put into her hand. She would put 
it in her mouth. On the 122d day, the candy was grasped for the 
first time and put into her mouth. On the 129th day, the 
eandy was ‘‘worried’’ into her mouth. On the 150th day, the 
whole process required three seconds. On the 164th day, the last 
five tests took two seconds each. 

We thus see that such a simple kinetic unit as grasping an 
article of food and conveying it to the mouth requires a definite 
stage of development. It is hard to elicit the first performance, 
which seems to be followed by rather rapid improvement after 
the first success, and finally, the slight gain in time and dex- 
terity requisite for perfection demands a relatively long period 
of exercise. 

Once, however, such a unit is acquired, it has a generic value. 
It may be used, of course, not only for one article of food but for 
‘anything at all, and is used, as is well known, not for food only 
but also for everything that attracts the interest of the child. 

® Watson, op. cit., p. 242. 

23 


346 VOLITIONAL CONTROL 


The fact that a coordination appears some time after birth does 
not mean that it is entirely an acquisition by trial and error. 
The development of walking is partly, perhaps fundamentally 
and essentially, the unfolding of a kinetic unit of man’s native 
endowment. This is witnessed by the sudden acquisition on the 
part of some children of the power of walking. Kirkpatrick gives 
the following account from a father who was unnecessarily 
worried because his child of seventeen months persisted in erawl- 
ing, and refused to make any attempt at walking. 

‘“ At last we referred the matter to a physician, who said: ‘It 
is a peculiar case, and I can hardly tell whether the difficulty 
is physical or mental. If there is no improvement in a short 
time, call me again.’ Shortly afterwards I came home one day at 
noon, and placing my cuffs on a table in the sitting-room, threw 
myself on a lounge to rest. Katherine happened to notice the 
euffs from where she sat on the floor, and, crawling across the 
room, pulled herself up by the leg of the table, and reaching out 
with one hand while she held on to the table with the other, took 
a cuff from the table and slipped it on, over her wrist. Of course, 
to do this she had to stand alone. I noticed it at once, and was 
surprised when she reached out her other hand for the other 
cuff and slipped that on, and then stood looking in a very inter- 
ested way at the cuffs on both wrists. Then, to our great surprise, 
she turned towards me with a very pleased expression on her face 
and walked as confidently and as easily as any child could. Not 
only this, but she immediately ran across the room, through 
another room and around through the hallway, not simply 
walking, but running as rapidly as a child of four or five 
years would.’’* 

The child continued to walk and run after this, provided she 
was allowed to wear cuffs, otherwise she would make no attempt. 

Trettien® has collected a number of instances of children who 
acquired the power to walk suddenly. The habit depends, to a 
large extent, on the myelinization of the fibres of the motor tract. 
ey The Development of Voluntary Movement,” Psychol. Rev., 1899, 
VI, pp. 76-7. 

* American Journal of Psychology, 1900, XII. 


KINETIC UNITS OF VOLUNTARY ACTION = 347 


Were children not urged to walk by their parents, the power 
would more often appear suddenly. Such a sudden appearance 
is not, after all, more remarkable than the coordination of eye 
movements at birth or the scampering of the colt just after it 
is born. 

The adult individual possesses a large number of these kinetic 
units, some the result of the mere unfolding of native endow- 
ment, though perfected later by practice; others the result of the 
acquisition of codrdinations that did not exist in the original con- 
stitution of the neuromuscular system. 

We may now approach the problem from the standpoint 
of pathology. 

Pathology has made us familiar with a number of distur- 
bances of voluntary action to which it has given the name aprazia. 
These apraxic disturbances may be conceived of as pathological 
influences which have in some manner destroyed the kinetic units. 
The kinetic units that are most frequently destroyed are those 
that were acquired by learning, such as the ability to make, on 
request, gestures, such as beckoning, threatening, etc., to make use 
of the arm in the movements habitual in one’s trade, to dress 
and undress, etc. Those kinetic units which are more funda- 
mental, such as breathing, swallowing, eating, turning the eyes 
in the direction of a stimulus, are usually preserved in 
apraxic conditions. 

Apraxia may affect one hand and leave the other free. This 
type is frequently associated with a lesion in the precentral or 
postcentral gyrus of the cerebral cortex, and seems to be mainly 
due to a disturbance of the motor elements in the kinetic unit 
in the former case, and the sensory in the latter. It may also be 
bilateral and may then be due to an inability to rightly interpret 
an object to be used and relate the sensation of perception to the 
act to be performed. As when a man, when attempting to put 
on his trousers ‘‘first flattens them out, then picks them up at 
the wrong end, turns them this way and that, finally lays them 
down, shaking his head because this once familiar act will not 
succeed, and then attacks the problem again.’’® 

® Monakow, Die Lokalisation im Grosshirn, Wiesbaden, 1914, p. 498. 


348 VOLITIONAL CONTROL 


At other times it seems as if the ‘‘kinetic melody,’’ as 
Monakow terms it, were forgotten. The individual elements are 
preserved, but they cannot be put together in the right order, and 
when the patient wants to smoke he puts the match in his mouth 
and strikes the cigar on the match box. 

There must, therefore, be a number of delicate motor coor- 
dinations established in the brain which can be disturbed by the 
causes that bring on apraxia: Cerebral hemorrhage, tumors, 
selerosis of cerebral arteries, tubercles, ete. 

It is very likely, however, that there 1s no circumscribed area 
of the cortex which is alone involved wn the mechanism of the 
kinetic units, but that the neurological mechanism of these units 
involves the whole cortex. 

‘“In all my cases,’’ says Monakow, ‘‘ where apraxia appeared 
as the result of a local cerebral injury and persisted as a lasting 
symptom until death, it involved, as we have seen, very large or 
multiple foci of injury. These were usually situated in the left 
hemisphere. Sometimes they were scattered through both hemis- 
pheres. Sometimes they were associated with diffuse, though 
irregularly seattered, pathological changes such as cerebral 
atrophy, perivascular sclerosis, severe circulary disorders of the 
cerebrum, brain tumors, causing general pressure, cerebral 
cedema, hydrocephalus, ete. In other words, in all the positive 
cases it was a question of a local disease or lesion of a brain that 
had suffered a general pathological disturbance either previously 
or at the onset of the local injury.’’” 


* Op. cit., p. 548. 


CHAPTER V 


THE SENSATIONS INVOLVED IN VOLUNTARY 
MOVEMENTS 


WE HAVE seen that in voluntary movements concepts are 
necessary. We must know what we are going to do before we 
ean perform a voluntary action. We have seen, too, that mere 
knowledge is not sufficient. After knowing what we are to do, 
we must also decree that it shall be done. Besides knowledge, 
therefore, there is necessary also a specific fiat or act of will. 
Without an act of will, there is no voluntary movement. We 
have seen that imagery is of doubtful use as a precursor of volun- 
tary movement. The question that is to be taken up in this 
chapter is, to what extent sensations are necessary in the exe- 
eution of a voluntary movement. 

Note that the problem before us now is not voluntary action 
in general, but voluntary movement in particular, and it may be 
well to point out, too, that we are not discussing here the neces- 
sity of images, but the necessity of sensations for the execu- 
tion of a voluntary movement.? 

There are several pathological cases that demonstrate beyond 
any question the necessity of some kind of sensation for the 
initiation and control of a voluntary movement. Perhaps the 
most remarkable case on record is one reported by Professor 
Schtippel in Tiibingen.* The case was that of a young man who 


*“ The first mention of such impressions goes back, according to Sir 
William Hamilton, to a rather remote past. He tells us that two Italian 
physicians, Julius Cesar Scaliger, 1557, and Cesalpinus of Arezzo in 1569, 
quite independently of one another, were the first to recognize and definitely 
state that the exercise of our power of movement is the means whereby we 
are enabled to estimate degrees of ‘resistance,’ and that by a faculty of 
‘active apprehension’ which was by them contrasted with touch as a 
‘capacity of sensation or mere consciousness of passion.’ ” 

H. Charlton Bastian, “The Muscular Sense: Its Nature and Cortical 
Localization,” Brain, 1888, X, p. 8. 

7“ Hin Fall von allegemeiner Aniisthesie,” Archiv der Heilkunde, 1874, 
XV, pp. 44-62. 


349 


350 VOLITIONAL CONTROL 


suffered from a complete anesthesia, except for a limited portion 
of the face, over the forehead, nose, eyes, lips, and chin. He 
also experienced pain in a few places of the body. Many cases 
of anxsthesia are hysterical in nature, and have no organic 
foundation. These hysterical cases are not good evidence in the 
present problem because we do not know to what extent any 
lack of ability in movement would be due to the lack of sensa- 
tion or would itself be an hysterical phenomenon. | If, therefore, 
we are going to find out what sensations are really necessary 
in the execution of a voluntary movement, we must have a real 
organic injury. There can be no question that Professor 
Schtippel’s patient had an organic loss of sensibility, for in the 
autopsy it was found that he had been suffering from what 
is known as syringomyelia. There was a canal in his spinal 
eord that extended from the first cortical root to the first lumbar, 
widest from the fourth to the seventh cortical regions where the 
posterior columns also were destroyed. The pyramidal tracts 
were intact from the medulla to the second cortical, but below, 
more or less sclerosed. In life, movement was possible to this 
patient only under direction of the eyes. If he could not see his 
hands or his feet, he did not know where they were and could 
not move them. Thus, for instance, he made use only of his vest 
pockets, because he could see them and direct his hand to them. 
It was impossible for him to find the hip pocket because he could 
not see it. If during the night time the covers fell off of him in 
bed, in some way he experienced chilliness, perhaps through the 
chilling of the blood, but he could not cover himself for two 
reasons: First, he could not find the covers; and, second, he 
eould not find himself. It is, therefore, clear that sensations 
of some kind are necessary in the execution of a volun- 
tary movement. 

Another classic case was reported by Striimpell.* A man 
received a stab wound in the neck which penetrated the spinal 
cord. Strimpell, on the basis of the evidence, diagnosed a destruc- 
tion of the posterior horn and the outer fibres of the posterior 
columns. After some months had elapsed, allowing the in- 
flammatory extensions of the injury to subside, the patient’s right 

* Deutsche Zeitschrift f. Nerven Heilkunde, 1902, XXIII, pp. 1-38. 


SENSATIONS IN VOLUNTARY MOVEMENTS — 351 


arm could execute movements under control of the eyes, but not 
when they were closed. With his eyes closed he could not main- 
tain his arm in a given position, but it would gradually deviate 
without his being conscious of any movement taking place. 
Movement under visual control was intact, but both superficial 
and deep sensibility were gone. It is clear, therefore, that some 
of the sensations that were lacking are necessary in the normal 
execution and control of a voluntary movement. 

This conclusion is confirmed by the results of animal experi- 
ments. After cutting the sensory roots of one of the extremities 
of a monkey, Mott and Sherrington * found that movements of 
the part were seriously impaired. Since then the experiment has 
become a common laboratory exercise with the frog. 

It is clear, then, that sensations of some kind are necessary 
in the proper execution of voluntary movements. 

The will has no immediate control over the muscles, but indi- 
rectly, by way of the pyramidal cells of the cerebral cortex and 
the motor cells of the anterior horn of the gray matter of the 
spinal cord. Not only is this so, but the pathological cases and 
experiments we have just mentioned prove that sensations of some 
kind are necessary for the execution of a voluntary movement. 
Not only must nerve impulses pass from the brain to the muscles, 
but they must come back again from the muscles to the brain, 
that normal action may take place. The question now arises, 
what sensations are necessary, and whence do they come? The 
possible sources of sensations are as follows: The bones, the peri- 
osteum, the joint cartilages, the jomt capsules, the subcutaneous 
tissues, the skin, the muscles and the tendons. The sources of 
evidence on the point may be grouped under the following head- 
ings: Anatomy, Psychological Experiment, and Pathology. 

As far as anatomy is concerned, all of the above possibilities 
are to be considered with the one exception of the joint carti- 
lages which are not supplied with nerves. They can, therefore, 
_mediate no sensations whatsoever, but the bones, the periosteum, 
the joint capsule, the subcutaneous tissues, the skin, the muscles, 

* Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, 1894-5, LVII, pp. 481-488. 


An experiment originally done by Claude Bernard. Legons sur la physi- 
ologie et pathologie du systéme nerveux, Paris, 1858. 


352 VOLITIONAL CONTROL 


the tendons are all more or less richly supplied with sensory 
nerve endings. 

In the muscles and tendons there are peculiar nerve endings 
whose structure suggests that they must have something or other 
to do with the sense of muscular contraction or kinesthetic sen- 
sation. Their structure is so interesting and suggestive that it 
may be well to study these organs in detail. 

Anatomical Basis of Muscular Sensations.°—Prior to 1850, 
muscles were supposed to be pure motor organs lacking in sen- 
sation. In this year Koelliker® called attention to fibres he had 
discovered, and which he considered sensory because their struc- 
ture was different from that of the ordinary motor fibres. 

Since then, the sensory neuromuscular end organs have been 
made the subject of many anatomical and physiological studies. 
Various forms of nerve endings have been found. The most 
interesting of these are the ‘‘muscle spindles,’’ their interest 
arising from the fact that their structure suggests that they are 
specially adapted to respond to the contractions of muscles in 
which they are imbedded. 

The muscle spindles are located in the muscle towards the 
tendon of insertion, or just before the point where the muscle 
fibres pass over into tendinous fibres. In the tissue of the tendon 
itself lie similar organs, the neurotendinous end organs of Golgi, 
in which tendinous fibres replace the special muscular fibres of 
the neuromuscular end organs. 

Though of various forms, simple and complex, a ‘‘muscle 
spindle’’ may be considered as being formed of the following 
elements: 

1. Its outer limit consists of a capsule formed of two zones of 
tissue, (a) an outer layer of connective tissue which ties the 

* The best article on this subject is that of Regaud, Cl., and Favre, M., 
“Les terminaisons nerveuses et les organes nerveux sensitifs de l’appareil 
locomoteur,”’ Premiére partie, Revue générale d’histologie, 1904, 1905, Vol. 
I, pp. 1-140. Deuxiéeme partie, II, pp. 587-685. 

* Mikroskopische Anatomie II, also “ Untersuchungen iiber den letzten 
Endigungen der Nerven. 1. Abth. Ueber die Endigungen der Nerven in den 


Muskeln des Frosches,” Zeitschr. wiss. Zool., 1862, XII, pp. 149-164. Fide 
Regaud and Favre, l. c. 


SENSATIONS IN VOLUNTARY MOVEMENTS 353 


muscle spindle to the interstitial connective tissue of the muscle; 
(b) an inner layer—the true capsule formed of layers of amor- 
phous connective tissue with imbedded nuclei. These layers are 
separated from each other by endothelial cells. 

2. Within the capsule filling its interstices, is a liquid of un- 
known composition, but probably of albuminous content. Golgi 
supposed that it was derived from the lymph vessels. Sherrington 
was able by injecting the lymph cells to fill the intracapsular space 
of the muscle spindles with Prussian blue. Regaud and Favre 
do not look upon Sherrington’s experiment as conclusive, but 
think that the space is probably hermetically sealed because of 
the fact that it is always present in every muscle spindle. Were 


it open, it should often be found collapsed. 


3. The capsule is traversed from end to end by a fascicle of 
muscle fibres (fascicle of Weissmann). They are much smaller 
in the adult than the ordinary surrounding muscular fibres, 
though in the foetus they are almost one-third thicker than fibres 
that make up the body of the muscle. In the region of the inser- 
tion of the sensory nerve the muscular strize more or less com- 
pletely disappear, and a number of nuclei are crowded together. 
The signification of this remarkable structural peculiarity is 
unknown. 

4, There are two kinds of nerves which enter the fibres. One 
type terminates in motor plates on the muscular fibre. The 
other, in typical cases, coils around the muscle fibre for a con- 
siderable distance. The motor fibre, which supplies the muscle 
fibre of the spindle, may not, however, terminate in the spindle 
but outside it. 

Similar structures exist in the tendons—the neurotendinous 
end organs. In these, tendinous fibres replace the intracapsular 
museular fibres. 

Demonstration of the Sensory Functions of the Muscle 
Spindles.—As early as 1874, Sachs’ demonstrated the presence of 

7“ Physiologische und Anatomische Untersuchungen tiber die sensiblen 
Nerven der Muskeln,” Reichart und Du _ Bois-Reymond’s Arch. Anat. 


Physiol. und wiss. Med., 1874, pp. 175-195, 491-509, 645-678. Fide Regaud 
and Favre, l. c., p. 11 ff, 


354 VOLITIONAL CONTROL 


sensory fibres in the muscles of the frog by a brilliant series 
of experiments. 

1. He injected strychnine into a frog, thus enormously in- 
creasing the animal’s reflex excitability. He isolated and sec- 
tioned the nerve to the Sartorius muscle. He stimulated the 
central end of this nerve, producing a general convulsion. The 
nerve of this muscle must, therefore, contain fibres which bring 
stimuli from the muscle to the cord. 

2. If you leave the nerve intact and dissect out the muscle, 
the stimulation of the muscle at any point produces convulsions 
in the strychninized frog. 

3. Cutting the anterior roots of the spinal nerves in a frog 
leaves some fibres undegenerated after six weeks. Cutting the 
posterior roots led to inconclusive results. — 

4, A thin muscle, such as the Sartorius, being exposed in the 
living frog under the microscope, Sachs found some fibres which 
caused muscular contractions when stimulated; others which 
caused no contraction. 

These experiments demonstrate the presence of afferent nerve 
fibres in the Sartorius muscle of the frog and its nerve of supply. 
They do not show that the muscle spindles take up centripe- 
tal stimuli. 

Cattaneo® attempted to find out whether or not the similar 
neurotendinous end organs undergo Wallerian degeneration. 
Cattaneo sectioned the posterior spinal roots of a dog. He does 
not specify which ones, nor how many, nor whether above or 
below the spinal ganglion. It is likely that he cut them central 
to the ganglion. The result was an ataxic gait, but no degenera- 
tion of the musculotendinous end organs. Sectioning the anterior 
root also left the end organs intact. They degenerated, how- 
ever, on sectioning the sciatic nerve. He concluded that the 
neurofibrils are connected with centripetal fibres and are 
sensory in character. 

* Cattaneo, A., “Organes nerveux terminaux musculo-tendineux, leur 
condition normales et leur maniére de se comporter apres leur section des 


racines nerveux et des nervs spinaux,” Archiv Italiennes de Biologie, 1888, 
X, pp. 337-357. 


SENSATIONS IN VOLUNTARY MOVEMENTS 355 


Sherrington, in 1894,° confirmed the results of Cattaneo. 

Pathology teaches us the same lesson. The neuromuscular end 
organs are left intact in degenerations that affect the anterior 
horns of the spinal cord. Thus, Hisenlohr, seeing the muscle 
spindles in the degenerated muscles of patients who had suffered 
from infantile paralysis, thought that they were sclerotic areas.!° 

Pelliet*? and Batten’* found the muscle spindles intact in 
the degenerated muscles of infantile paralysis. 

Forster found? in a case of diffuse myelitis with destruction 
of the cord, but intact spinal ganglia, that the neuromuscular 
spindles were still preserved. 

The observers quoted by Regaud and Favre (l. c., p. 80) 
found the muscle spindles intact in tabes dorsalis. But 
Brazzola,‘* in a case where the disease had progressed very far, 
found them degenerated. Whenever tabes goes so far as to 
destroy the spinal ganglia, it cannot be doubted that the muscle 
spindles will degenerate. ? 

From all the above it is evident the muscle spindles send 
centripetal impulses to the cord, and probably thence to the 
brain. It is not, however, evident that they mediate for us 
conscious sensations. 

There are two theories as to their mode of action. 

Sherrington supposes that the pressure of the contracting 
fibres external to the capsule gives a mechanical stimulus to the 
intracapsular nerve fibres. He has even demonstrated that mere 
pressure or pulling on a muscle, dissected free from its tendon of 
insertion, causes a reflex contraction of the antagonists. 

Regaud and Favre,!® however, believed that the normal phys- 

* Journal of Physiology, XVII, pp. 211-258. Fide Regaud and Favre. 

»“ Mittheilungen iiber anatomische Befunde bei spinaler Kinderlith- 


mung,” Tageblatt d, 59. Versamml. deutscher Naturforscher u. Aertzte, zu 
Hamburg, 1877. 

% Journal Anat. et Physiol., 1890, XXVI, pp. 602-616. 

_™ Brain, 1897, XX, pp. 138-179. Fide Regaud and Favre. 

*“ Zur Kenntniss der Muskelspindeln,” Virch. Arch. Path. Anat., 1894, 
CXXXVII, pp. 121-154. Fide Regaud and Favre. 

*% Memorie della R. Accademia della Scienze dell instituto di Bologna, 
1890, Serie V, Tomo., pp. 465-496. 

* Op. cit., p. 86. 


356 VOLITIONAL CONTROL 


iological stimulus of the muscle spindle in the contragtion of the 
intracapsular muscle fibres (fascicle of Weissmann) which 
stretches the nerve fibre coiled about them. These fibres are 
supplied by collaterals coming from the same nerve fibre 
that supply the extracapular muscle fibres. A part of the cur- 
rent, therefore, that goes to the body of the muscle must go 
simultaneously to the muscle spindle. The histology of the mus- 
ele spindle strongly suggests the view of Regaud and Favre. 
But, if it is true of the muscle spindle, what is to be said of the 
analogous organs of Golgi in the tendons, where tendinous fibres 
take the place of the fascicle of Weissmann ? 

After careful consideration of the anatomical evidence, Regaud 
has suggested the following association between the various 
forms of nerve endings and specific forms of sensations coming 
from the organs and tissues involved in movement: 


I, KINA STHETIC SENSATIONS 


1. Muscle spindles, end organs, whose chief function is to 
react to the degree of contraction of the muscles, and thereby 
give us information about the position of the members of the body. 

2. Neurotendinous end organs. These terminations are espe- 
cially adapted to react to intense muscular effort and give infor- 
mation about the degree of resistance experienced. 

3. Corpuscles of Ruffini. These are found about the tendons, 
the periosteum, the ligaments and capsules of the joints. These, 
according to Regaud, are specifically adapted to respond to ten- 
sion of the fibrous organs. 

4, Paciniform corpuscles. These are located around the joint, 
and, according to Regaud, are specially adapted to respond to 
external pressure. 


II. PAIN SENSATIONS 


Regaud understands by this, various nuances of the sense of 
pain. He supposes that the free ends of the nerve fibres mediate 
for us sensations of pain."® 

Let us now turn to the experimental and pathological evidence. 


*C, L. Regaud, “ Les terminaisons nerveuses et les organes nerveux 
sensitifs de l’appareil locomoteur,’’ Deuxieme Partie, Revue générale 1907 
Vhistologie, II, fase. 7. 


; 


SENSATIONS IN VOLUNTARY MOVEMENTS 357 


Joint Sensations.—That kinesthetic sensations are functions 
of articular motion was made evident by the experiments of 
von Frey.” He enclosed the arm in a rigid sleeve and hung 
weights close to the joint and at some distance from it. With 
slow movements of lifting, those weights appeared equal that 
would be balanced by another force, acting at the other end of 
the lever; that is, they appeared equal when they had the same 
moment of rotation. Since now the force at the other end of the 
lever is the muscle attached by its tendons to the bone, it seems 
likely that the judgment of identity comes from sensations resi- 
dent in the motor organ, 1.e., muscles and tendons. If this is the 
case, then the sensations may be spoken of as functions of 
articular motion, but need not be articular sensations themselves. 
This, indeed, was the conclusion drawn by von Frey. We may 
now ask ourselves: Could not the joint surfaces be the source of 
the sensation? Thus, the degree of pressure between the articu- 
lar cartilages must vary with the moment of rotation of the foree 
acting on the arm. Could not this give rise to the sensations 
involved? This is one of the earliest views of the kinesthetic 
sense. Oehrwall'® says it was first propounded by Lewinsky’® 
and is to-day generally accepted. Histological evidence and 
physiological experiment rule it out completely. There are no 
nerves in the joint cartilages or the cartilaginous disks found in 
some joints. 

Goldscheider? himself, in his animal experiments, could 
obtain no reflexes by stimulating the articular cartilages, and 
concluded that they acted as if they were without any sensa- 
tion whatsoever. 

Lennander”! made use of a patient with a cut that slit open 

17M. v. Frey, “ Studien tiber den Kraftsinn,” Ztsch. fiir Biologie, 1914, 
LXIII, pp. 129-154. 

% Skandinavisches Archiv. fiir Physiologie, 1915, XXXII, p. 221. 

~“ Ueber den Kraftsinn,” Virchow’s Archiv., 1872, LXXVII, p. 141. 

*® Ges. Abh., II, 287. 

2K. G. Lennander, “ Ueber lokale Anidsthesie und iiber Sensibilitit 
in Organ und Gewebe,” Gesammelte Werke, I, pp. 138-142, Upsala, 1912, 
cited by H. Oerhwall, “ Der Sogenannte Muskelsinn,” Sk. Arch. f. Physi- 
ologie, 1915, XXXII, pp. 217-245. 


358 VOLITIONAL CONTROL 


the knee-joint to test the articular cartilages for sensitivity to 
pressure and pain, but found them insensitive. In a student 
who had to undergo an amputation, he made more extensive 
experiments. He found the joint cartilages insensitive to touch, 
hard pressure, heat, and cold. (17°—60°.) 

Goldscheider*?? thought that by passing a faradic current 
through a joint he could reduce the interior joint sensibility. As 
a matter of fact, when one does this, the power of discriminating 
passive movements is considerably decreased. But just what 
happens here is not immediately clear. The sensibility of the 
skin around the joint is reduced. Pillsbury,” however, showed 
that the sensitivity of the joints is decreased by passing the cur- 
rent through other joints than those involved in the movement. 
It would thus seem that something besides sensation from the 
joint in motion is involved in the perception of movement. 

Von Frey** found that by anssthetizing the skin in the neigh- 
borhood of a joint, one raised the threshold; but the same result 
was obtained by anesthetizing the skin at a distal joint. Further- 
more, stretching the skin with adhesive-plaster lowers the thres- 
hold. He also obtained the same results with faradization, as did 
Pillsbury. He also experimented on a patient two months after 
he had undergone a resection of the elbow-joint, that is, an opera- 
tion involving the removal of the joint surfaces with a saw, and 
placing a strip of fascia lata between them. By analogy with the 
skin, one would not expect a notable return of sensibility at the 
end of two months. Von Frey found, however, that there was no 
diminution of sensibility to passive movement. He concluded 
that the perception of passive movement could not depend upon 
sensations originating in the joint.?* 

* Gesammelte Abhandlungen, 2 Vol., Leipzig, 1878. 

>“ Toes the Sensation of Movement Originate in the Joints?” Am. d. 
of Psychol., 1901, XII, pp. 346-353. 

“Von Frey, M., and Meyer, O. B., “ Versuche tiber die Wahrnehmung 
gefiihrter Bewegungen,” Zeitsch. f. Biologie, 1917-1918, LX VIII, pp. 301-338. 

** Ueber Bewegungswahrnehmungen und Bewegungen in resezierten 
und in anesthetischen Gelenken,” Zeitsch. f. Biologie, LX VIII, pp. 339-350. 


Also, “ Weitere Beobachtungen tiber die Wahrnehmung von Bewegungen 
nach Gelenkresektion,” J. ¢., 1919, LXIX, pp. 322-330. 


SENSATIONS IN VOLUNTARY MOVEMENTS — 359 


From all of these experiments and observations it seems clearly 
evident that sensations from the joints are a minor, if not a 
negligible factor in the perception of passive movements. 

Sensations from the Skin.—Both von Frey and Pillsbury 
argue from the experiments we have just cited, that sensations 
from the skin must be involved in the perception of passive 
movements. But any sensations from the skin that may be in- 
volved cannot be ordinary touch sensations, for there are a num- 
ber of pathological cases which show that touch may be practi- 
cally normal and yet the sensation for passive movement and 
for the position of the members is profoundly disturbed.*® 

On the other hand, there are a number of cases where touch 
is more or less completely destroyed, and the sensation of move- 
ment is preserved.** 

Skin Pressure.—Schlesinger called attention to a mode of 
sensibility that he spoke of as skin pressure. He measured it by 
a pair of graduated spring forceps that clamped a fold of skin, 
and indicated the strength of squeezing that is necessary to give 
a feeling of pressure. He found, in some of his cases, that this 
sense might be lost, and the sense of deep pressure remain which 
is measured by placing a weight on the skin of the arm, hand, ete. 
It may also be present or lacking when the mere touch sensation 
of the skin is preserved or destroyed. This sense, however, can- 
not account for the sense of active or passive movements, for 
in two of his cases (No. 12 and No. 20), the superficial pressure 
sense was destroyed, and the sense of active and positive move- 
ments was preserved. In the same manner the deep pressure sense 
may be ruled out as the source of our perception of movement. 

“Ad. Schmidt. “ Auffillende Stérung des Lokalisationsvermégen in 
einem Falle von Brown-Séquardescher Halbliihmung,” Deutsch Zeitschrift 
f. Nervenhetlkunde, 1904, XXVI, pp. 323-325. 

Also, Curschmann, Hans, “ Ueber Syringomyelia dolorosa mit aussch- 
liesslich sensiblem Stérungen,” Berliner klinische Wochenschrift, 1920, 
LVII, pp. 1184-1187. 

Gilles de la Tourette, “Un cas de Syringomyelie,” Nouvelle Icono- 
graphie de la Salpétriére, 1889, II, pp. 311-317. 

* Die Syringomyelie: Hine Monographie von Dr. Herman Schlesinger, 
second edition, Leipzig, 1902, Case 2, data, p. 445. 


360 VOLITIONAL CONTROL 


We may, therefore, say that some form of sensibility which 
is not usually tested in our experimental studies is the source of 
our perception of active and passive movements. 

Sense of Tension.—Striimpell’s clinical insight has enabled 
him to pick out what is probably the form of sensation that is es- 
sential in the perception of movements. In his Lehruch der 
Speziellen Pathologie und Therapre,*® he writes as follows: 

‘‘Our judgment of the position of the members of the body 
and the passive movements that may be executed with them, 
does not depend exclusively on the sensibility of the mus- 
cles, but probably also on the sensibility of the joint surfaces, 
corpuscles and ligaments. All these parts, as well as the skin, 
are displaced and stretched in ever-changing degrees in various 
movements. Nevertheless, I believe that, as a matter of fact, 
the changing condition of tension in the muscles themselves and 
their tendons makes possible our judgment concerning the posi- 
tion and movements of the members of the body. Many investi- 
gators have thought that the judgment concerning the degree: 
and direction of passive movements depends upon the sensibility 
of joint surfaces rubbed against each other. I do not believe it, 
because I have repeatedly examined patients with joint surfaces 
that have been completely resected, who, nevertheless, perceived 
the slightest passive movements in the parts concerned with abso- 
lute exactness and correctness.’’ 

It would thus seem that Striimpell lays chief stress upon what 
we may term our sense of tension. It is this sense of tension that 
is most likely responsible for the perception of movements. This 
does not mean that touch sensations are excluded in a normal 
individual. Thus, the rubbing of the clothes in any movement 
in practical life aids its perception and perhaps its control. Pres- 
sure upon the skin and the muscles themselves in extreme flexion 
are undoubtedly factors. It is likely, also, that one joint differs 
from another joint in the relative value of the various elements 
of the kinesthetic sense. But pathological cases show that joint 
sensations are not necessary, that touch is not necessary, that skin 
pressure and deep pressure are not necessary ; but that there is 

* Kighteenth edition, 1912, Vol. 2, p. 272. 


SENSATIONS IN VOLUNTARY MOVEMENTS _ 361 


something over and above these that when destroyed makes the 
sense of passive movement impossible. Striimpell is, therefore, 
probably correct in attributing this to the sense of tension in the 
subcutaneous parts of the body. It is perhaps also possible that 
the skin itself has a tension sense different from the touch and 
pressure sense, although, so far as I know, the threshold of this 
tension sense has never been measured. Von Frey’s experi- 
ments, referred to above, in which he increased sensibility for 
passive movement by stretching the skin, would indicate that the 
tension sense is localized in part, at least, in the skin itself. 

We have seen, too, that Regaud suggests that there are two 
forms of end apparatus that may be involved in perception of 
movement—one the Pacini type of corpuscle, adapted to pressure; 
the other the Ruffini type of corpuscle, which seems more adapted 
to stretching. It is, therefore, likely that the sense of tension 
has its own end organ. 

Active and Passive Movements.—Wundt analyzes the kinss- 
thetic sense into two components. If a movement is made, a 
weight of some kind is lifted by the moving member, and it is 
lifted to a certain height. The mass times the height is the 
measure of the work done. The mass is related to the energy 
expended by the mechanism of the muscles. The height is related 
to the position of the lever system that the bones constitute. If 
someone else moves my arm, that is to say, if a passive movement 
is executed, one of these components falls away. I ean, therefore, 
no longer judge by any sensations which come to me from the 
expenditure of energy, but I am left to make a judgment purely 
on the basis of whatever sensations come to me from the position 
of the arm itself, 

Pathological conditions also make a distinction for us between 
the perception of active and of passive movements. For there are 
a number of cases on record in which the patient lost the 
sense of passive movement, but retained his perception of ac- 
tive movement.’® 

Neurologists are wont to measure these two perceptions in 
the following way. Passive movement is measured by moving 
a finger of the hand, or the hand itself, or the forearm, or the leg, 
V2? BG. Schlesinger, op. cit., Case 5, Case 10, Case 17, Case 38. 

24 


362 VOLITIONAL CONTROL 


ete., and asking the patient to speak as soon as he perceives the 
movement. Normal patients perceive the slightest change in 
position of the members of their bodies. Active movement is 
measured by placing, e.g., one arm in a certain position of exten- 
sion or flexion and asking the patient, with eyes closed, to place 
the other arm in a precisely similar position. To do this the 
patient must perceive the position of the one arm and be able 
actively to imitate this with the other arm. 

The perception of active movement must also be distinguished 
from the power of codrdinate movement. A patient may be able 
to copy exactly the position of one of his members by placing 
the other in a similar position, but still be unable to make a 
coordinate movement by which he would, e.g., touch his nose 
with the tip of his finger easily and without any wavering. 

From the disassociation between the perception of active and 
passive movements, present in a number of patients, we may 
argue that they do not depend upon the same factors. The loss 
of perception of active movement always involves a much greater 
disturbance than the loss of perception of passive movement. 
The perception of passive movement probably depends upon the 
tension sense of skin and subcutaneous tissues, muscles, tendons, 
ete. But what is it that gives us the power of feeling the move- 
ments that we make ourselves? 

The Feeling of Innervation.—J. Miiller, in his Handbuch 
des Physiologie des Menschen,®© suggested that when the mus- 
cles are innervated there may be an accompanying central feel- 
ing of innervation. The authority of Miller gained for this idea 
a friendly acceptance in the scientific world, and the feeling of 
innervation was looked upon by many as a fairly well-established 
sense. William James attacked the idea in his essay on the 
feeling of effort (1880), and embodied the eriticisms of that 
essay in the chapter on ‘‘Will’’ in his Psychology. Miwler 
and Schumann*! argued against the feeling of innervation on 
the basis of their experiments on the comparison of weights. 
They found that if a weight of 676 grams be compared with one 
of 826 it will always be perceived, at the outset, as lighter. If 


*° Bd. 2, S. 500. 
" Archiv. f. d. ges. Physiol. (Pfliiger), 1889, XLV, pp. 37-112. 


SENSATIONS IN VOLUNTARY MOVEMENTS _ 363 


the 826 gram weight be now compared with one that is consider- 
ably heavier than it and then again compared with the standard 
of 676, in the second comparison, the heavier or 826 gram weight 
seems equal to, or even lighter than the standard of 676. They 
argued that this phenomenon cannot be explained by a feeling 
of innervation, for evidently, in view of having become accus- 
tomed to the heavier weight, the 826 gram is lifted with a stronger 
impulse than previously. If the strength of the impulse measured 
is indicative of the feeling of innervation, then the stronger i1m- 
pulse should make the weight feel heavier instead of lighter. 
They, therefore, concluded that there was no possibility of 
accounting for this illusion on the theory of innervation. 

If the feeling of innervation were the only factor in the per- 
eeption of an active movement for the lifting of weights, it 
would be very difficult to account for the illusion studied by 
Miller and Schumann. If, however, the feeling of innervation 
is one factor in a complex in which sensations from the moving 
member are normally important parts, it is quite easy to see that 
when the stronger impulse is not associated with the expected sen- 
sations of resistance from the object lifted, that it would seem 
much lighter than it really is. Miller and Schumann’s exclusion 
of this explanation by saying that it is too complicated does not 
rule it out. In fact, their experiment with the lifted weights 
does not constitute a crucial test of the theory. 

On the other hand, those who favor the theory have appealed 
to illusions of patients with amputated arms and legs, who, when 
they intend to make a movement, feel that it actually occurs and 
are often capable of carrying out complicated movements with 
the phantom member. Though the feeling of innervation might 
account for these phenomena, they are capable of other explana- 
tions (e.g., mere kinesthetic imagery of the movement), and they 
do not constitute a crucial test or an absolute demonstration of 
the existence of the feeling of innervation.** 

2 Wundt’s analysis of illusions, obtained in patients suffering from 
external strabismus, is strong evidence of the feeling of innervation. He 
shows there that James, who makes use of the same phenomena, bases his 


argument on an incomplete representation of the facts. Grundziige der 
Physiologischen Psychologie, fifth edition, Vol. II, p. 27 ff. 


364 VOLITIONAL CONTROL 


Pathology gives clear evidence that when there are no sen- 
sations that come from the moving organ, the mind is neverthe- 
less capable of perceiving active movement. If this is the case, 
there must be something or other akin to a feeling of innervation. 
The above cases which we referred to, of the loss of the sensation 
of passive movement without that of active movement being at 
the same time destroyed, are evidences of this fact. The follow- 
ing case, however, carefully studied by Lashley,** is very strong 
evidence in favor of some kind of perception of muscular inner- 
vation. A man had a gunshot injury to the spinal cord, resulting 
in partial anesthesia of both legs and paralysis of the muscles 
below the knees. The region around the left knee was anzesthetic 
to touch. Deep pressure was felt in this region only when a 
stimulus of from 2000 to 3000 grams was applied over an area of 
one-half inch in diameter. Flexion and extension were still pos- 
sible in the left knee-joint. Careful experiments showed that 
the patient had no sense of the position of his leg. He could not 
detect passive movements in a speed of less than twenty centi- 
metres per second. This, under the conditions of the experiment, 
would equal about 25° per second. He could not maintain the 
leg in a fixed position with the eyes closed.** 

The subject could not imitate a movement of flexion or exten- 
sion when a pattern was given by the experimenter moving the 
leg through a given angle. In such experiments he sometimes 
would flex the leg when the pattern called for an extension. 
Lashley tried to investigate the presence of afferent stimuli from 


the muscles and tendons. To do this he had the leg work against | 


a spring and make a movement equal to three inches. The 
stronger the action of the spring, the shorter was the movement 
made by the subject. Under such conditions the subject per- 
ceived no difference between a movement of 38° flexion and 
18° extension. It is to be noted, however, that the subject felt 

* Lashley, K. S., “The Accuracy of Voluntary Movement in the 
Absence of Excitation from the Moving Organ,” American Journal of 
Physiology, 1917, Vol. 43, pp. 161-194. 

* Lashley unfortunately does not say anything about the eyes, but 
leaves us to conclude that the eyes were closed in these experiments. He 


does not say whether a fixed position could be maintained under 
visual control. 


SENSATIONS IN VOLUNTARY MOVEMENTS — 365 


the resistance. The subject’s sense of movement was so impaired 
that when his leg was forcibly extended during his attempts to 
flex it, it nevertheless seemed to him that he had executed the 
movement of flexation, or when the leg was held so that no move- 
ment was made, he nevertheless felt that the movement had actu- 
ally taken place. This illusion could be explained by a feeling 
of innervation. 

From this set of experiments Lashley concluded that there 
were no sensations from the actively moving limb sufficiently 
specific to give a clew to the nature of the movements. When, 
however, the subject was called upon to make a movement him- 
self, he never made an error of direction. He could also, when 
working without assistance, make a movement of 0.5° to 
8° with about the same accuracy as a normal subject. The more 
quickly the subject executed a movement, the more accurate it 
was. When, however, the leg was working against a strain, the 
actual movements, judged as equal, grew progressively longer. 

‘“‘The progressive increase in the length of movements esti- 
mated as equal seems almost certainly the result of frequent repe- 
tition of the movement. From the subject’s statement it seems 
probable also that the increase resulted from some feeling of 
resistance or of increased effort necessary for the movement which 
led to an over-compensation.”’ 

Lashley also investigated the relation between the duration 
and extent of the movement and found ‘‘a degree of independence 
in the rate and extent of the movement which precludes the pos- 
sibility that the extent of the movement is determined merely 
by the control of the duration of the excitation of the motor 
pathways.’’ (P. 186.) 

Lashley concluded that in the absence of excitation from the 
moving organ, the accuracy of its voluntary movement cannot 
depend on reflexes originating in sensations resident in the organ 
itself. Control must be exercised by the brain. There must be 
-a set of some kind prior to the execution of a movement which 
determines its direction and duration. 

We may ask ourselves whether or not this set is the voluntary 
fiat, the act of will itself, and nothing more. It cannot be doubted 
that ultimately the degree of movement depends upon the fiat. 


366 VOLITIONAL CONTROL 


But is it possible that over and above the fiat and sensations from 
the moving organ, there is some other kind of perceptual data by 
means of which the type and degree of the movement may be dis- 
tinguished? This evidently must be the case. Thus, for instance, 
the muscles and nerves can themselves be normal and yet the 
feeling for active movement may be considerably disturbed.** 

There is also evidence to show that the mere thought of a 
movement brings about an activity in the motor area of the 
cerebral cortex that is accompanied by vascular reflexes leading 
to a change in blood pressure. The perception of these reflex 
changes, and perhaps other associated sensations, as Wundt 
suggests, may constitute the feeling of innervation. 

Ernst Weber,®® experimenting first on animals that he had 
eurarized,*’ found that stimulation of the motor cortex causes a 
rise of blood pressure in the carotid artery and at the same time 
a decrease in the blood volume of the viscera. 

Turning then to man, he made plethysmographic experiments, 
and found that voluntary movements, e.g., in the foot, caused 
an increase in blood volume of the arm due to a general rise in 
blood pressure which is accompanied by contraction of the vis- 
ceral blood vessels. This increase in blood volume of the arm 
may also be caused by hypnotizing a subject, and in the hypnotic 
state suggesting movement of some kind, e.g., running. Under 
such conditions an increase in blood volume in the arm is even 
more marked than that obtained by actual movements of the foot. 
If one attempts to will a movement and think of a movement with- 
out actually executing it, one obtains a similar increase in blood 
volume in the arm, but not so quickly, and after a longer length of 
time, and when it does occur, it is not so marked in intensity as 
in hypnosis or in actual voluntary movement. This increase in 
“Of. E. G, Miiller, H. Franz, “Syringomyelia mit bulbiren Sympto- 
men,” Deutsches Archi fiir Klinische Medicin, 1894, LII, pp. 259-299. 

“Das Verhiltniss von Bewegungenvorstellungen zu Bewegung bei 


ihren Kérperlichen Allgemeinwirkungen,” Monatschrift fiir Psychiatrie und 
Neurologie, 1906, XX, pp. 529-554. 

“Injection of the drug curare blocks nerve impulses to all voluntary 
muscles of the body, thus rendering it impossible to stimulate them by 
electric current. When therefore Weber stimulated the motor cortex of the 
brain, it could have no effect on the muscles themselves. 


SENSATIONS IN VOLUNTARY MOVEMENTS _ 367 


blood volume during the hypnotic state does not take place if 
passive movements replace the active or suggested movements. 
Weber, therefore, concluded that the idea of movement causes 
in man the same phenomena as does the electric stimulation of the 
cortex in animals. 

These experiments suggest very strongly that thinking about 
a movement*® brings about some kind of change in the Rolandic 
area of the brain, a change which results in vascular reflexes 
producing a change in blood pressure, and thereby bringing 
about many sensations that could perhaps be factors in the 
feeling of innervation that precedes or accompanies the muscu- 
lar contraction. 


_ SUMMARY 

Let us now attempt to indicate, on the basis of the study 
we have just made, the nature and character of the sensations 
involved in voluntary movement. 

I. The sensations found in passive movement are, in all prob- 
ability, one element of the voluntary movement sensation com- 
plex, even though they may not be essential for the actual 
execution of the movement. 

The form of sensation essential to the perception of passive 
movements is the feeling of stretching that comes to us from 
the skin and subcutaneous tissues. Regaud and Favre’s ob- 
servations suggest as its anatomical end organ the corpuscles 
of Ruffini. 

II. The form of sensation essential to the voluntary direction 
of active movement is the feeling of effort. This is a complex 
which results from vascular reflexes giving rise to various organic 
sensations from increased blood pressure, and also from sensations 
coming, in normal individuals, from the muscles and tendons of 
the moving member. The end organs of these sensations are 
probably the muscle spindles and the neurotendinous end organs 
of Golgi. Visual sensations are capable of functioning in the 
- place of sensations from the moving member itself. 


** Whether or not this thinking of the movement is in terms of thought 
or of kinesthetic imagery is not settled at all by Weber’s experiments, but 
is left entirely open. Whatever one normally does when he intends to make 
a movement brings about the reflexes that Weber has found. ; 


CHAPTER VI 
THE PATHOLOGY OF VOLUNTARY ACTION 


PATHOLOGY is a scientific study of the abnormal conditions 
of the organism underlying specific forms of disease. If, there- 
fore, we are to study the pathology of voluntary action, we must 
assume that in the individual there may be definite abnormal 
conditions more or less constant in character that have something 
to do with the deviation of his behavior from the standard of 
normal conduct. That this may be the case will be evident on a 
little reflection. Voluntary action, as we have seen in our pre- 
vious analysis, involves more than the fiat of the will. Even in a 
simple piece of voluntary action, such as the willing of a move- 
ment, we must suppose, besides the fiat, the integrity of muscle, 
nerve, and central nervous system. When we come to consider 
the complex behavior of a human being in the practical affairs 
of life, and pause to consider the numerous psychological mechan- 
isms that are involved in conduct, we can readily conceive of a 
very extensive field for psychopathological study. 

The utility of such an investigation is at once apparent. Any 
thing that gives us a clearer insight into just what is going on 
in a patient’s mind in the course of his pathological conduct 
may help us not only to understand him, but may also, in many 
cases, enable us to modify his behavior. 

With this problem in view,! I turned to the material in the 
files of my clinic and tried to study out the various conditions that 
present a kind of static background for abnormal behavior. To 
study all the conditions underlying pathological behavior would 
involve going over much of the ground we have already covered 
in the study of the unconscious, the conflict, and mental adjust- 
ments. Leaving these things aside, we may investigate certain 
other factors which, as more or less static or abiding conditions, 
profoundly influence conduct. 

+ Birnbaum’s article referred to below, I found helpful as a preliminary 
orientation in this field. 

368 


THE PATHOLOGY OF VOLUNTARY ACTION — 369 


Thus, for instance, we may ask whether or not abnormal 
behavior may be due to the fact that a person has inherited a 
constitution that is more difficult to manage than is usual, or 
which breaks down more readily under the stress and strain of 
life. <A little experience with human nature will very quickly 
convince us that many individuals seem to have inherited some- 
thing abnormal or have failed to inherit traits that pertain to 
normal human beings and, in consequence, find the management 
of life and its problems much more difficult than others who have 
been blessed with a better hereditary endowment. 

On the other hand, pathological behavior seems, at times, to 
be due mainly to lack of proper training. At all events, it is con- 
eceivable that an individual may have an adequate hereditary 
endowment, but may, nevertheless, get into trouble because he 
has not been taught how to manage himself, and has not been 
shown the possibilities that life holds out for him. Again, patho- 
logical behavior might be due to a pure defect of volitional con- 
trol, or to abnormalities of the intellectual or emotional life, ete. 

Let us commence the study by first investigating cases which 
seem to be due to defects of training or heredity. 

Defect Present with Lack of Training.—In February, 1922, 
a woman came to see me about her son, Francis, the complaint 
being that he was lazy and could not be interested in anything. 
As a matter of fact, the principal of the school he attended said 
that though the boy was respectful and well behaved, he was a 
shirker and failed in every study. He had threatened to dismiss 
him in the midyear, but the boy asked to be retained, and so 
he was allowed to drag through the first year of high school. 

Mental examination showed that he was indeed dull, but not 
sufficiently so to explain his complete failure in everything. He 
was sixteen years and eleven months old, with a mental age, by 
the ‘Stanford Revision’’ of thirteen years and five months, and an 
intellectual quotient of eighty-four. 

Light is thrown on the young man’s condition by his early 
history, and particularly by the character of his mother. 

She obtained a divorce from her husband, and when Francis 
was nine years old went into the moving pictures. Francis was 


370 VOLITIONAL CONTROL 


himself put on the stage while still a child and had some success 
as a singer and dancer. His schooling was irregular, obtained 
first in one place, then in another, according to circumstances. 

An insight into his home life is given by the following report 
of a social worker who called on his mother. 

Francis is living with his mother in his grandmother’s 
apartment—two bedrooms, dining-room, kitchen. It is cheaply 
furnished, and dirty. Francis’ mother came to the door in an old 
bathrobe and slippers, dirty and untidy. She was garrulous in 
her gratitude for the visit, and vituperative to her mother with 
whom she had to live, calling her frequently ‘‘this brainless 
woman,’’ blaming her for her present condition in life and her 
early marriage, boasting that she is much finer than her family, 
and that they have continually dragged her down, etc., etc. She 
and her mother would both speak at once on the same or different 
topics. When the daughter became particularly abusive, the 
mother called her and all her children a lot of ‘‘bullheads’’—said 
she ‘‘never could teach them anything,’’ ete. 

Francis walked down the street with the social worker. He 
told her that his mother got on his nerves. He has some affection, 
but no respect for his mother. There is some evidence that 
Francis’ mother is openly immoral. 

Francis gave the impression to several who have studied him 
that he is by no means hopeless in himself, but only in his pres- 
ent surroundings. | 

It is very difficult to say in any case that a condition is wholly 
environmental or wholly hereditary. In fact, in all abnormal 
human conditions, we must take three things into consideration: 
(1) Heredity, (2) environment, (8) activity or will itself. 

The case of Francis appears on the surface as one in which 
the young man’s environment was inadequate, and he did not 
get the training that would have enabled him to develop into 
a normal human being. He himself may be, in part, responsi- 
ble for his own condition, and there may also be an hereditary fac- 
tor. But eases such as this point out the possibility of human lives 
being wrecked merely by inadequate surroundings. 


THE PATHOLOGY OF VOLUNTARY ACTION — 371 


Defect Present in Spite of Training.—When a young man, 
well above the upper limit of feebleminded intelligence, cannot 
be interested in making something out of himself, is lazy, and 
shirks work, it cannot be doubted that there is some kind of defect 
in the voluntary control of his life. There is present a defect 
of the will or of voluntary action. In the case just studied, the 
defect is due perhaps to lack of discipline being exercised by the 
boy’s mother and not to himself. 

A man may inherit a wonderful violin of the best make of the 
old masters, but unless he is taught how to use it he will never 
draw forth from it a single melody. 

A ehild may have fairly good native volitional ability, but 
unless someone trains him and implants ideals of conduct, it is 
not surprising if later on he does not manage himself and his 
affairs with ordinary prudence. 

On the other hand, some children have no lack of training, 
and, nevertheless, develop later on an habitually incorrigible 
character. They do not merely slip occasionally into some delin- 
queney, but are constitutional psychopaths. I have in mind 
a young man who was probably fairly bright. He did some 
of the eighteen year old tests, and then refused to do anything 
more. His father is a man of good character, and has tried 
to be severe with the boy. His mother, who has been perhaps 
too kind, but seems a reasonable, refined lady, tells me that the boy 
is lazy, has a vile tongue, and will neither study nor work. He 
desires only to have a good time, plays pool, and smokes cigarettes 
and loiters on the street corners all day. When refused money 
he borrows it from dealers with whom his parents trade. When 
he cannot obtain it in this way, he tries to steal it at home. He 
has given his mother fair warning that he will steal any money 
she leaves around. My attempts to reason with him only met 
with a smiling defiance. 

Here is clearly a defect in the management of one’s personal 
affairs. Something is wrong with the steering mechanism in this 
~ young man’s mental life. 

It is hard to say whether this defect is due to an hereditary 
cerebral defect or one that was acquired early in life by some 


372 VOLITIONAL CONTROL 


infectious disease, or that the mental condition was developed 
by repeated voluntary delinquencies. In his previous history, 
however, it is worth while noting that he had an infectious disease 
in infancy (fifteen months), diagnosed as whooping cough,” just 
about the time he was learning to walk and talk. After this dis- 
ease he stopped walking and talking, and at two years and three 
months could only say a few words and did not really commence 
to talk again until about three years of age. His father, though 
he never drank to excess, was a constant drinker. His mother’s 
father was a drunkard. 

It is perfectly true, however, that every attempt was made 
from childhood up to make this young man what he should be. 
He was sent to good schools; his father and mother were well 
above the ordinary mental and social level; his training was not 
neglected, though there may have been mistakes in it (an over- 
tender mother, and a father who was perhaps inclined to be too 
severe) ; but on the whole, the young man has had far better 
opportunity to succeed than most boys, in spite of which at pres- 
ent, he presents to us a complete failure. _ 

He has not responded to his training. It may be that he him- 
self is at fault, but there is definite indication in his history of 
organic defect, due to bad heredity and disease in infancy. He 
is perhaps a type of volitional defect that develops in spite 
of training. 

Pathology of Voluntary Action Due to Impairment of the 
Will Itself.—Ribot, in his Diseases of the Will, classifies impair- 
ments of the will as due to defect of impulse and excess of im- 
pulse. If one studies the impairments he speaks of under the 
caption, ‘‘ Excess of Impulse,’’ one will see that in the termi- 
nology of this book they are not defects of the will itself, but are 
automatic actions, not truly volitional in character, or impulsive 
drives probably due to what we have termed above pathological 
associations. There is no such thing as a will that is pathologi- 
cally strong. A man can no more have a will that is pathologi- 
cally strong than a mind that is pathologically bright. Thus, 


*Pertussis does at times leave disorders of the nervous system as 
serious complications. 


THE PATHOLOGY OF VOLUNTARY ACTION — 373 


for example, a man’s muscles can never be too strong to manage 
the horses he is driving. He may not know how to use his mus- 
cles, but the fault would not be in the strength of the muscles but 
in the way he makes use of them. 

Will is a mental force by means of which we control and 
regulate the impulsive drives of our nature. Impulse may some- 
times be pathologically strong, but the will never. As a matter 
of fact, the impulses themselves are seldom too strong but are 
merely poorly balanced. It is possible, however, that the will 
may be pathologically weak, and yet, when I come to study over 
my material, I can find no case of a pure defect of will without 
any other accompanying symptoms. It is very difficult to be 
sure that weakness of will is the only thing involved in abnormal 
volitional activity ; nevertheless, I think, the type of character 
that Birnbaum® speaks of really exists and is perhaps not so 
very rare. He refers to natures passive, but not dull, who, ‘‘in 
_ opposition to the indifferent, harbor lively desires; they really 
want what they desire to come about; but without their being 
obliged to do anything themselves, and because, as a general rule, 
this is not possible, they never get any further than wishing, 
and perhaps only a step further—to propose and resolve; but as 
far as carrying anything out that involves personal activity, 
the inner drive is lacking.’’ The following ease suggests, how- 
ever, a will that was pathologically weak even though it had 
emotional difficulty to contend with: 

On May 16, 1916, a man of forty, an hotel waiter by trade, 
visited the clinic complaining of weak spells accompanied by 
dizziness and a feeling of flushing in the head. He had been 
troubled with these spells for about six years, and attributed their 
origin to a mild drinking spree during which he became dizzy 
and had a pain in his heart. These spells had recently worried 
him so much that he had given up work. His savings bank account 
had dwindled to seventy-nine cents. His wife was supporting 
the family by working as a washwoman. The home was neglected, 


3 Birnbaum, Karl, “ Die Krankhafte Willensschwiiche und ihre Erschei- 
nungsformen,”’ 1, Grenzfragen des Nerven und Seelenlebens, Wiesbaden, 


1911, XII (Heft 79), p. 75. 


374 VOLITIONAL CONTROL 


the children improperly clothed, and he spent the greater part 
of the day in bed brooding over what might happen to him in | 
one of his spells. 

Physical and mental examinations were negative. He had 
good muscles, and no reason could be found why he should 
not work. : 

He was reassured as to his health, and the Social Service De- 
partment obtained employment for him in a hotel where he 
went to work in a borrowed suit of clothes. His wife was spoken 
to and urged to cease scolding him and treat him affectionately 
and cooperate in the policy of reassurance. He continued to 
have occasional pains in the heart region, and about ten days 
after he had commenced work resigned his job in one of these 
spells and came to the clinic to have his heart examined. He 
was again reassured and given a note to his employer, and urged 
to start a savings bank account. He did not, however, present 
the note and returned on the next clinic day complaining of 
bladder pains. He was again reassured and urged to go back 
to work. This he did a few days later only to give up his job 
less than a week later, complaining of the same old dizziness, 
and also of a heavy feeling in his throat. 

He was again reassured and his wife urged to be patient a 
little longer and not to scold. This time our efforts were crowned 
with success, and he remained at work, and in July, 1919, he 
came and proudly showed me his bank account in which the 
last deposit had raised his savings to a round one thousand dollars. 

And here the story might have happily ended. But in the 
course of the winter of 1919-20, during my absence from Wash- 
ington, he commenced again to vacillate between his bed and 
his job. A physician urged him to have his teeth pulled, which 
he did. He was very much frightened at the loss of blood and 
conceived the idea that his system was depleted beyond recovery. 
I was unable, in the fall of 1920, to persuade him again to go to 
work. He said it was too late, and only after much persuasion 
was his wife able to get him to visit the clinic in the automobile ~ 
of a friend. He came and sat before me with a worried, anxious ~ 
face, holding his pulse all during the interview and assuring me — 


THE PATHOLOGY OF VOLUNTARY ACTION = 375 


that his heart had been seriously affected by the loss of blood 
experienced in the extraction of his teeth. I insisted that he go 
back in the street car, which feat he accomplished, but could not 
again be persuaded to visit the clinic. A complete collapse was 
prevented by a novel readjustment. His wife did not want the 
savings bank account to dwindle so she went out to work and he 
did the cooking and looked after the house. 

Here is a patient in whom one may say that there was a 
weakness of voluntary control. It was associated, however, with 
an abnormal anxiety about his physical condition, behind which, 
considering the final readjustment, there probably lurked a 
desire to be eared for by his wife. 

A normal will would have been able to cope with the con- 
flict. His was able to do so when bolstered up by assurances, 
and his wife’s petting for about three years, only to crumble 
again and accept a situation in which he became the dependent 
party and his wife became his supporter and protector. 

Such eases as this suggest, at least, that the will is itself 
weak in some individuals. For this patient did not have a 
serious conflict as compared with those of other men. Apparently 
his wife had a strong will. Whether or not this is so, or her weak 
will was effectively reinforced by the human impulse to save 
money, it is hard to say. It is likely, however, that a woman 
who was capable, in the first place, of restraining the very strong 
feminine tendency to scold a good-for-nothing husband, and then 
take things in her hands and save the family life by herself 
going out to work, had a power of will that was as much above 
normal as her husband’s was below. 

It is likely, therefore, that strength of will is subject to con- 
siderable variations in the many individuals that go to make up 
the species, homo sapiens. 

Pathology of Voluntary Action Due to Abnormality of the 
Intellectual Life—Voluntary action has not only to do with 
isolated pieces of action, but also with the management of the 
individual’s whole life. Normal volitional activity means, there- 
fore, a normal life. A life cannot be normal unless it is useful 
and happy. A life, furthermore, cannot be happy unless it is 


376 VOLITIONAL CONTROL 


useful. We cannot stop to demonstrate the truth of these state- — 
ments for they would lead us too far outside the sphere of psy- _ 
chology. But if the reader will pause to consider the lives of 
men he knows in history or in his own experience, he will find 
that those who accomplsh something worth while are happy, 
and those who waste life are unhappy. The converse in this case 
is also true, that those who are happy are those who accomplish 
something worth while. 

Life, therefore, must have a goal or an end, that the individual 
realizes and strives to attain. The end, too, must be worthy of 
a man. If it is not, pathological disturbances will be sure 
to make themselves manifest and lead, finally, to shipwreck 
and failure. 

If this is true, an adequate plan of life is necessary for nor- 
mal volitional activity. Seeing that such a plan of life is often 
missing, pathological volitional activity is a most common dis- 
order. I may give one example as a representative of a class 
whose name is legion. | 

A man of thirty-one came to the clinic at the request of the 
Red Cross, who reported that he did not work and did not sup- 
port his wife. The patient himself complained that he was deli- 
eate and suffering a general nervous breakdown. 

He had spinal meningitis when nine years of age, and some 
kind of sickness that he termed ‘‘walking typhoid,’’ three or 
four years previous, during which he did not go to bed, but 
walked about out of his head, and finally cured himself by drink- 
ing whiskey and Peruvian bark. 

He went only to the fourth grade in school, but claims to 
have gotten, after that, ‘‘a good home education in engineering 
and chemistry.’’ His mental age was eleven years and six months, 
with an intelligence quotient of 72. 

He married at twenty-two and has three children. His 
first job was ‘‘jumping’’ on a bread wagon. He was then mes- 
senger boy for the Pennsylvania, and later in various telegraph 
offices, then clerk in the freight division, then call boy for the 
Pennsylvania Railroad. Then helper in R ’s bakery, then in 
C ’s bakery, then in W. ’s bakery, then in H ’s, then 














THE PATHOLOGY OF VOLUNTARY ACTION = 377 








C ’s again, then G ’s. Then went to North Carolina as 
a mail clerk. Then took a fish wagon. Then in various bakeries 
and breweries. He gave up his jobs often because he wanted to 
move around, often because he would get in a quarrel and 
‘‘smash’’ some fellow; but claims that he never acted so they 
would not take him back. At the time of his examination he 
was looking forward to being a brakeman on the Pennsyl- 
vania Railroad. 

In the meantime, his wife complains that he beats her, sits 
around the house, refuses to go out and work and eats up what 
she gets by work and charity for herself and the children. 

That this man has never conceived of a plan of life there 
ean be no doubt. At the same time, it will be admitted that if 
he had been capable of such a conception and had held it before 
his mind it would greatly have reduced his pathological tendency 
to wander from job to job, and would have made his behavior 
more normal in every respect. 

His life is certainly useless, but in spite of my theory of happi- 
ness and usefulness he maintains that he is happy. This claim 
is probably to be taken with a ‘‘grain of salt’’ or rather we should 
say, that a man who ‘‘smashes’’ his fellow-workers, beats his 
wife, and eats up his children’s food, does not know what happi- 
ness is. He may have a naturally cheerful disposition, but happy 
he certainly is not. His borderline mentality really spares him 
the misery that a normal mind would experience that had to look 
back on a failure such as his. 

Unfortunately, there are many normal minds who, having 
wasted their youth and accomplished nothing, become cynical, 
sour, discontented, or perhaps sink into a depression as their half 
eentury of life draws to a close. 

Abnormalities of voluntary action may result from something 
less fundamental than the absolute lack of any plan or aim or 
ideal in life. It often happens that people afflicted with some 
form of mental disorder falsely interpret the behavior of other 
men, or even animals, or of inanimate objects. They then feel 
violently impelled to do something about what they think they 
gee, and so result the grossest abnormalities of behavior. 

25 


378 VOLITIONAL CONTROL 


Such false interpretations have their roots in normal mental 
life. Human nature is prone to be suspicious. To suspect others 


that may try to circumvent or overreach you is a normal, human’ 


impulse, intimately connected with the instinct of self-preser- 
vation. To feel sure that you yourself in particular are the object 
of particular scorn, the one person whom some one individual or 
a group is persecuting, this is already definitely abnormal. The 
larger the group to which your suspicion extends the more patho- 
logical it is hkely to be. You must put it down as a general rule 
that suspicions are either exaggerated or wholly unfounded. 
When a young lady suspects that a gentleman who works at 
a table near her in the office is continually watching her she is 
very likely to be mistaken. I remember one case of dementia 
precox whose first pathological manifestations came in this way: 
She suddenly broke out before everyone in the office and told a 


young man that his behavior was ungentlemanly and unkind, . 


that she would not stand him continually watching her, ete. The 
young man was really very much surprised and later humbly 
begged her pardon. The girl afterwards realized that her sus- 
picions were unfounded, felt’ very much ashamed of herself, 
resigned her position, and later was taken to an asylum as a 
well-developed case of dementia preecox. 

Faulty interpretations are not always so plausible in their 
appearance. I remember one young man who came to me be- 
eause he had heard that I was a psychologist and would probably 
be able to illuminate him so that he could better understand the 
complicated action of the minds of other people on his own. I 
asked him how they acted on him; he said by concentration. 
“¢ And how do you know they concentrate?’’ ‘‘Why,’’ he says, 
‘it is just this way: As soon as I enter the street car on my way 
to work, every man in the car holds his newspaper in a particular 
way, and then I know they are concentrating. Before very long 
one of them coughs. A cough you know is a eall for help from 
other minds. He feels that my concentration is overpowering 
him; and then a number of people in the car cough, thereby 
sending out calls for help, because they see that otherwise I will 
be too strong for them.’’ The same thing happens at the office. 


THE PATHOLOGY OF VOLUNTARY ACTION — 379 


He is not there long before someone coughs. He felt that this way 
of persecuting him should cease, and he was going to take the 
matter up, if necessary, with his congressman. 

A lady once complained to me about a fly that used to come 
and plant itself on the table before her. It would then take its 
front legs and rub them over its head exactly three times, and 
then its hind legs and rub them over its wings exactly five times 
and would then come back and do the same thing over, only 
the next time the number of rubbings would be different because 
communicating a different kind of message. 

These faulty interpretations lead, at times, to all kinds of 
misbehavior, violent scenes in public, visits to the White House, 
murder, ete. The actions committed are in a sense voluntary, but 
the individuals are not responsible. The locus of their psychic 
lesion is not in the will but in their thought processes. That a 
perfectly normal human act may take place, the individual must 
_ not only be able to choose, but also to understand. Given the pre- 
mises of the insane, their actions are perfectly logical, and fre- 
quently calculated, rather than the result of blind drives to 
unspeakable crimes. 

Pathology of Voluntary Action Due to Abnormalities of 
the Affective Life.—Abnormalities of the affective life may be 
due to the lack or dulness of emotion in situations where a nor- 
mal human being would be deeply moved, or to the fact that 
some emotion is present in excess and so interferes with nor- 
mal behavior. 

A girl of seventeen once came to the clinic at the request of 
a friend. When I asked her what was the matter, she said: 
(1) That she was indifferent about everything; (2) that she 
had spells of worry about the ordinary action of her daily life, 
but never about her sins; (8) that she was restless and never 
satisfied. 

Her mentality was good. She did all of the Stanford fourteen 
year old tests, all of the sixteen year old, till I came to the digit- 
span, and then refused to codperate further. She had been 
through the second year of high school. She left home about a 
year previous to her visit to the clinic, and lived with her aunt. 


380 VOLITIONAL CONTROL 


She had been sending thirty dollars a month to her old and depen- 
dent father, but now felt that she ought to have the money for her-_ 
self, and saw no reason why she should be burdened with the ‘old 
man’s’’ support. She boasted of her flirtations and declared that 
she took great delight in ‘‘vamping’’ a man, and then running 
away and leaving him. , 

She used to rob the mail boxes in apartment houses just to 
see what was in the letters. Often, when on a visit, she would 
steal money or valuables, just to be doing something wicked, 
feeling sure that her friends would not suspect her. She tried 
to kill her uncle because he was interfering with her free life. 
She got some rat poison from a cupboard and put it in his 
tea. She was afraid he would taste it and so put in too Little. 
When he did not die, but only got sick, she felt very angry. 

She says that she has made a league with the devil that if she 
gets something, she will always do his will. But still she has a 
hazy idea that she will fool him and end her life as a Magdalen. 
In fact, she is writing a novel in which the heroine is a prostitute 
who dies a Magdalen. She claims that she has never felt sorry 
for any bad act that she has ever done. 

I tried to get some information about the extent of her emo- 
tional resonance. 

Seeing people injured in an auto accident awakened in her 
curiosity, but no uncomfortable feelings, nor sympathy. She is 
often cruel to animals, and used to kick the little kittens about 
at home, just to see them suffer. She is proud that she has not 
got what she termed ‘‘ soft, sloppy feelings.’’ She visited the 
clinic but twice, and then left town. I later received a letter 
from her from New Orleans, thanking me for trying to help her 
when she was in Washington. 

A case of this kind approaches as closely to the psychiatric 
phantom, ‘‘moral insanity,’’ as anything I have ever met: Nor- 
mal intelligence and apparently no moral perception. But what 
we find is not a lack of perception of the difference between right 
and wrong, but a deficiency of the emotional life. She knows 
perfectly well that her life is wrong, believes in God, the devil 
and hell. But there is no emotional resonance in the presence of 


THE PATHOLOGY OF VOLUNTARY ACTION — 381 


human or animal suffering. She lacks a factor in the control 
of her conduct that is perhaps more potent in maintaining 
morality than the world in general realizes. What a tremendous 
change would be wrought in human behavior if, all of a sudden, 
sympathy and its emotional resonance could be blotted out from 
our mental life! 

This case is very instructive inasmuch as it shows how abnor- 
mal behavior may be due, in part, to a lack of inhibitions. This 
lack of inhibitions was due in its turn to the lack of the emotional 
resonance of sympathy. 

On the other hand, an emotion may be so intense that it 
will awaken inhibitions that the will is more or less powerless 
to overcome. 

In October, 1920, a man came to me complaining that he did 
not know what to do with time. He would awaken in the morning 
and would wonder how he would be able to live through the day. 
_ What could he do with the hours before him? He was, at the 
same time, sad and depressed. He had thoughts of suicide. He 
got rid of his pistol for fear he would not be able to resist the 
impulse to kill himself so as to get rid of time. But then he 
had to fight against the impulse to jump out of the window. He 
can no longer keep on at his business. If he goes to his office, 
in spite of the fact that his correspondence is before him, he still 
does not know what to do with time. If he goes to the moving 
pictures, he thinks that it will be so many minutes before it is 
over and feels that he cannot possibly sit through the whole 
thing. Mere existence seemed interminably slow and he was 
unable to carry on his former occupation. 

His condition was due to a paralytic stroke from which he 
had practically recovered as far as movement was concerned; 
but it had worked a complete transformation of his character. 
His systolic blood pressure was 195. 

Here, then, we see a pathological condition due, psychologi- 
cally, to the slowing down of the stream of thought and a sadness 
that took the zest out of normal mental activity. Though some 
improvement was obtained by regulating his diet and administer- 
ing nitroglycerin, reducing his blood pressure, and enabling him 


382 VOLITIONAL CONTROL 


to attend to some of his correspondence, nevertheless, he remained 


unable to break through his depression and assume his nor- — 


mal duties. 

Excitement, also, may interfere with voluntary action by the 
acceleration of the stream of thought so that normal insight into 
conduct, its purpose and its consequences is impaired and the 
will has not the opportunity to control the patient’s behavior. 

Anxiety, also, may limit or even destroy responsibility. The 
following letter indicates a state of mind in which the patient 
may readily be led to a course of action that will not be reason- 
able and not in accord with her own best interests: 

‘‘T think my trouble was brought about by overfatigue, 
overanxiety, and apprehension about my brother; not allowing 
myself to rest in the morning. I think that just as one force can 
be changed into another, so one anxiety can be changed into 
another. I feared for him and that fear has been changed into 
the well-worn groove of another fear, namely, that I should see 
something sexual. Everything has become something that I must 
run away from. I don’t know how to handle myself at all. I 
ean’t look out the window, go into the garden or look at the 
servant maid. My head is filled with rushing sounds and pulling 
feelings at my neck, and my spine is in pain, particularly under- 
neath the shoulders, and I ache all over. At night I can’t go to 
sleep with the thought that I will be rested in the morning, 
because I fear the suffering that the next day will bring, and I 
notice that my thinking has become confused. Unless something 
occurs immediately to centre all my attention upon it, I know I 
shall lose my mind. Two years of freedom from this fear have 
given me such an increased horror of going through the same 
thing again, that I am worse than ever. My money is tied up 
here. My future is a blank. I cannot look to my mother for 
anything. I have so many physical symptoms that I am going 
through a complete breakdown. Feel that I should give up my 
position, sell my home, leave town and go far away where no one 
will know me.”’ 

Pathology of Voluntary Action Due to Abnormality of 
Impulses and Desires.— When emotional and intellectual life are 





THE PATHOLOGY OF VOLUNTARY ACTION 383 


normal, I doubt that the will is ever inadequate to the task of 
controlling impulsive drives and blind desires. At least, I can 
remember no case in my own experience where excess or defect 
of impulses and desires is the sole difficulty. Impulses are ten- 
dencies to exercise human abilities in the presence of stimuli; 
desires, cravings to make use of these abilities when the oppor- 
tunity is lacking. Given normal abilities, there is very likely to 
be a normal balance between them, and hence, native excess or 
defect of impulse and desire is not likely to be the sole cause of 
pathological behavior. 

Something akin to a pure conative disorder of will takes place 
in girls, less often, I believe, in boys, when sexual maturity ripens 
several years before the normal age of puberty. Healy records 
a number of these cases and I have had several in the clinic at 
Providence Hospital. When this happens, the drive of the sex 
impulse is out of all proportion stronger than the balancing 
- factor of intellectual insight into the meaning of life and its 
ideals. The will, too, has probably not attained the full strength 
of adult development. No adequate control, therefore, is possible. 
It frequently happens, however, that under good custodial 
eare, the balancing factors develop, and develop sufficiently to 
enable such patients to manage their future life with prudence 
and success. 

In one of my patients I have suspected that the craving to 
treasure up the good things of this world was so abnormally 
developed that it was a factor in his pathological behavior. 

The patient is a Hebrew, forty-two years of age. He has had 
several spells of depression. Each one of these had come on 
when he had gone into business for himself. He commences his 
enterprises with great enthusiasm and high hopes that he will 
soon be among the wealthier classes. But after a few weeks 
becomes anxious and depressed, and finally, incapacitated to 
carry on his work and sells out at a loss. He then goes back 
to his trade as a cutter, becomes cheerful again as his wages roll 
in regularly. Saves money only to be driven on to amass more 
money by going into business for himself. 


384 VOLITIONAL CONTROL 


The drive to make money is not in itself a unit impulse. But 


money satisfies many human impulses. This man’s craving is _ 


so strong that he can never long endure to contemplate the possi- 
bility of failure; and so he becomes depressed and tries to save 
what he can by sacrificing something of what he still possesses. 


Nor does reason exercise a control over his conduct even in the . 


face of the object lesson of past failure. 

Pathology of Voluntary Action Due to Organic Cerebral 
Defect.—Let us recall again our simile of the ocean liner with 
its pilot and the mechanism of its steering-gear. The pilot may 
be perfectly normal and thoroughly acquainted with his business, 
but if the steering-gear breaks, he will not be able to bring the 
ship into harbor. So, also in man. The management of human 
life is dependent not only on normal piloting, but also on the 
intactness of the mechanism of the steering-gear itself, which, in 
this case, is the central nervous system. Whatever one may 
think of this distinction in human psychology between the pilot 
and the mechanism of the steering-gear, he will have to admit 
that the psychological disorders of the will that we have just 
considered are very different from the organic ones we are about 
to review. 

We have already seen that the use of the voluntary muscles 
depends on the intactness of the nerves going to the muscles 
and coming away from them. Voluntary movement, therefore, 
can become impossible because of defects in the peripheral nerves. 
Broadly speaking, pure nerve injuries pertain to the pathology 
of voluntary action. Nevertheless, we have been more or less 
accustomed to looking upon those things that affect the peripheral 
nervous system as not pertaining to our mental life. 

The effects of various toxins that are frequently taken into 
our system is to impair volitional activity. Thus, aleohol very 
quickly does away with normal voluntary action. The same 
is true of morphine. The after-effects of aleoholism on normal 
volitional activity are by no means so disastrous as are those of 
morphine. Morphine is said by psychiatrists to paralyze the 
will. The morphine addict never again becomes a normal man; 
he is a weakling. And should any difficulty arise, instead of 


THE PATHOLOGY OF VOLUNTARY ACTION — 385 


attempting to put up with it, as most people do, it seems to 
him unbearable, and he must take to his drug. Just how it is 
that morphine affects the cerebral mechanism so as to perma- 
nently impair voluntary activity, we do not know. 

Then there is the condition known as apraxia. All of its forms 
pertain, ordinarily speaking, to impairments of the will. But 
what Monakow terms the agnostic form of parapraxia, is a defect 
of voluntary movement which is due to the inability of certain 
patients clearly to understand and put together the various 
elements of a voluntary action. Thus, dressing is a daily perfor- 
mance whose elemental parts must be carried out in a certain 
order. One of my patients with a brain tumor manifested this 
form of apraxia, and it was this that first disturbed his wife about 
his condition. He tried to put his shirt on his legs and seemed to 
be very much worried because this feat was impossible. Here we 
have a form of disturbance of voluntary control dependent not on 
the will, but on correct apprehension. According to Monakow, 
when it occurs as a permanent mental defect, it is never due to a 
local injury, but always points to a cortex that has suffered 
general impairment. 

The disease recently recognized and termed encephalitis 
lethargica sometimes leads to abnormalities of behavior. One of 
my cases manifested a peculiar transformation of personality 
after the onset of this disease.* The patient, prior to his disease, 
was a quiet, bashful young man, who had never caused any 
trouble; was a good workman, reliable and trustworthy. After 
his disease, every symptom of bashfulness disappeared. For 
instance, in going into the Social Service Department one day 
he knelt down before the lady in charge and opened his arms 
and begged her to go with him to the moving pictures. He would 
walk up to girls in the street and speak to them. He was dis- 
charged several times because of his attempts to engage ladies 
in conversation at the places where he worked. He ruined valu- 
able plumbing materials that were given him to put up—some- 
thing that he had never done before his illness. He seemed 

*This case is reported by Donald McNeil in American Journal of 
Psychology, January, 1923. 


386 VOLITIONAL CONTROL 


abnormally cheerful. He was thoroughly satisfied with himself. 
He addressed a publie audience without any show of fear what- 
soever. His behavior, in short, was completely different from 
what it had been before. Lncephalitis lethargica is a disease 
which affects the gray matter of the brain, and somctimes of the 
spinal cord. It is, therefore, certain that this peculiar transfor- 
mation of character was preceded by injury to the cerebral 
mechanism. His abnormalities of conduct, therefore, were due 
to an impaired cerebral mechanism. McNeil thus summarizes 
the changes that appeared and attempts to reduce them to one 
unit explanation of loss of control. 

‘‘ Although many character traits have been noticed as having 
undergone transformation, it is not impossible that all of these 
may be reduced to one and the same factor, 7.e., a paralysis of 
inhibitions. This paralysis of inhibitions was due, to a great 
extent, to the loss of intellectual insights into relations. He is 
not tactful because he does not see the relation of his conduct 
to ends that would be more readily perceived by a normal indi- 
vidual; he is forward and bold because he has lost due apprecia- 
tion of the meaning of conduct. Those things that have been 
built up by education, that act as a restraining influence upon 
conduct, have been paralyzed. His behavior resembles very 
much that of a man slightly under the influence of aleohol. He 
is clumsy with his tools; he is awkward in his manner; he is 
talkative; he is cheerful; he has lost all feeling of shame and 
restraint; he comes late for his job, and has no appreciation of 
what this may mean; he does not care; he has no bashfulness; he 
has none of the finer sensibilities. The loss of all of these things 
and the appearance of others does not mean that his encephalitis 
lethargica has produced a change in many attributes of charac- 
ter, but only in one, 2.e., control. This control demands for its 
perfect exercise the perfect functioning of a very elaborate cere- 
bral mechanism. It is this cerebral mechanism that has been 
injured by the encephalitis lethargica, and because of its injury 
this peculiar transformation of character has taken place. Such 
an injury may happen in other ways, and frequently does appear 
as a transitory disturbance in alcoholism and epilepsy. Unfor- 


THE PATHOLOGY OF VOLUNTARY ACTION — 387 


tunately, with encephalitis lethargica the injury is permanent. It 
is not likely that this patient’s character will ever again return to 
what it was before his sickness.’’ 

Volitional Training.—Most works that have to do with voli- 
tional training merely give general advice which could be im- 
parted by any honorable man with a fair insight into the prob- 
lems of life. Thus, Payot, in his little book on the Education of 
the Will, accentuates the necessity of avoiding day-dreaming and 
sensuality and companions who have ceased to make any effort 
to improve themselves; not to allow one’s self to be captivated 
by the sophisms of the indolent, e.g., ‘‘that it is impossible to do 
any real work,’’ ete. A suggestive article by Wittig,® on the basis 
of his experience as a teacher, suggests such things as the fol- 
lowing: Encouraging a child to speak aloud and not to whisper 
in asking questions. Use every opportunity to encourage a 
pupil by saying such things as, ‘‘See, you can do it, can’t you? ”’ 
Arouse disgust for dirtiness and associate impurity with unclean- 
liness. Encourage a child to read a book of instruction with no 
stories in it, all the way through. Ask the children to see who 
ean keep a piece of candy the longest without eating it. When out 
on a walk with the children on a hot day, and you pass a stream, 
ask who ean walk on without drinking. In class, ask them who 
ean keep from turning around whenever the door opens, etce., 
ete. One can readily see that in such exercises as Wittig says, 
the personality of the teacher is the main thing. 

Barrett® has attempted to develop a technique of training 
the will itself by a system of exercises. He assumes that the will 
is a definite mental faculty, and concludes that if the will itself 
is to be strengthened, the exercises must be purely will exercises 
and have no intellectual or other value of any kind, but affect the 
will and the will alone. Thus, for instance, the student is to 
make a resolution like the following: Each day, for the next 
seven days, I will stand on a chair here in my room for ten con- 
secutive minutes, and I will try to do so contentedly. In carrying 








* Wittig, K., “ Willensiibungen,” Ztsch. f. d. Behandlung Schwachsin- 
niger, 1916, XXXVI, pp. 3-19. 
°R. Boyd Barrett, 8S. J., Strength of Will. 


388 VOLITIONAL CONTROL 


out these exercises the student is urged to make careful introspec- 
tion of what goes on in his mind during the exercises, to try to 
pick out his will, as it were, in action and to study it. The follow- 
ing exercises for the curing of an impetus will give a good idea 
of the method: 

1. To replace in a box, very slowly and deliberately, one | 
hundred matches or bits of paper. 

2. To write out, very slowly and carefully, fifty times the 
words, ‘‘ I will train my will.’’ 

3. To turn over, slowly and quietly, all the leaves of a 
book (about 200 pages). 

4, To stand for five minutes in as complete a condition of 
listlessness and lethargy as possible. 

5. To swing the arms over the head slowly and delib- 
erately for five minutes. 

6. To watch the movement of the second hand of a clock 
or watch, and to pronounce some word slowly at the 
completion of each minute. 

7. To draw on a piece of paper, very slowly and pains- 

takingly, parallel lines for five minutes. 

. To count aloud, slowly, up to two hundred. 

9. To put on and take off a pair of gloves (or brush a 
hat) very slowly and deliberately for five minutes. 

10. To move a chair from one side of the room to the 
other, very slowly, for five minutes. 

IT have not been sufficiently impressed with the method, or 
perhaps have not had the courage to give it a personal trial. I 
have, nevertheless, recommended it to several of my patients 
who felt that their wills were weak, and they have reported that 
they thought it helped them. I have been rather sceptical, pri- 
marily, because of the impression that in most individuals there 
is plenty of will energy, if there is anything to call it out. I 
have so often seen the apparently hopelessly languid awakened 
to new life and activity that I am inclined to believe that most 
human beings are equipped with will power essentially sufficient 
for the burdens placed upon it. 

Abnormalities of the will, in my experience, are more fre- 


je2) 


THE PATHOLOGY OF VOLUNTARY ACTION — 389. 


quently due to other factors in the volitional complex than the 
power of will itself—to the lack of high ideals, to faulty inter- 
pretations, to disorders of the emotional life, ete. It is not likely 
that one will correct his ideals or his wrong points of view by 
standing on a chair for ten minutes every day. If, however, 
the difficulty. with the individual is a pure lack of volitional 
strength, it is quite possible that Father Barrett’s exercises will 
be of real assistance to him. 

On the basis of our analysis of the pathology of the will, we 
would suggest that volitional training could be attempted along 
the following lines: For the strengthening of the will itself, 
there should be exercises in the keeping of resolutions for definite 
periods of time; to do without something that one craves, such as 
tobacco, candy, etc.; to rise promptly every morning at a certain 
hour, ete. Such exercises have to do with real volitional problems 
and would probably be more effective than those suggested by 
_ Father Barrett, although his exercises might be a useful adjunct. 
Secondly, the development of a high, noble unit plan of life. 
This is by far the most important thing in volitional activity. It 
is the intellectual basis of the normal management of our whole 
life. One who has no plan of hfe, nothing that he wishes to 
accomplish, cannot hope to manage himself with ordinary pru- 
dence. It is here that religion enters and becomes a most 
powerful factor in the actual training of the will. Besides one’s 
general plan of life, he must have ideals and principles, a lofty 
conception of the virtues, truth, honesty, purity, etc.; principles 
of conduct, such, for instance, as Kant gives in his Categorical 
Imperative: Act always so that you will treat the personality 
of another always as an end and never as a means. There must 
be, also, an esthetic appreciation, of the beauty and the value of 
the moral life. One must develop the habit of looking at things 
from various points of view and beware of the fallacies that lead 
to false interpretation of the acts of others and abnormal con- 
duct upon one’s own part, based upon such false interpretations. 

For the control of the emotional disorders of the will, prophy- 
laxis is the only hope. This prophylaxis means a knowledge of 
one’s self, of one’s own complexes, of the pathological associa- 


390 VOLITIONAL CONTROL 


tions that he has developed, so that he can see, on many 
occasions, the unreasonableness of his emotional outbursts, and - 
so be enabled, by the perception of his own folly, to avoid its 
consequences. Impulses are ineradicable, and it is vain for us 
to attempt to dominate them by uprooting them; but they can 
be balanced by other impulses. The great trouble with many 
people is the narrowness of their mental life. They know noth- 
ing but the pleasures of the senses. They have never allowed 
opportunity for the development of intellectual drives or esthetic 
appreciations. Few normal individuals, perhaps none at all, 
are incapable of any form of intellectual pursuit or artistic ex- 
pression. There is so much that is capable of captivating the 
human mind, that is high and noble and worthy, that it is not 
necessary for anyone to give himself up to any single impulsive 
drive. There are many things that can be done by the skilful 
and for which it is very difficult to lay down hard and fast rules. 
Volitional control is one of these. It will scarcely be possible 
ever to do more than analyze the psychological elements in vol- 
untary action and then leave it to the ingenuity of the individual, 
aided by his psychological insight, to manage the affairs of his 
own life with tact and prudence. This does not mean that know!l- 
edge is virtue. Voluntary power is something real in our mental 
life, but it cannot be exercised without intellectual insight. The 
study of the pathology of the will and the mechanisms of the mind 
is of distinctive value in supplying the depth of insight which is 
necessary for adequate volitional control. 

Volitional Tests.—June E. Downey,’ Professor of Psychology 
at the University of Wyoming, has attempted a scale for the 
measurement of volitional types. The scale purports to measure 
sueh characteristics as coordination of impulses, accuracy, 
tenacity, resistance, assurance, motor impulsion, speed of decision, 
flexibility, freedom from inertia, speed of movement, by giving 
the subject a mark for each of these characteristics, and erecting 
ordinates whose length corresponds with the score in each trait. 
Then by drawing a line across the top of these ordinates, one 


7University of Wyoming Bulletin, Vol. 16, November, 1919, No. 4B, 
Department of Psychology, No. 3, second edition. 


THE PATHOLOGY OF VOLUNTARY ACTION — 391 


obtains the individual’s will profile. Miss Downey found that 
judges who know an individual ean readily identify his profile in 
the midst of a group of other profiles.® 

It is quite likely that the will profile tests measure something. 
It is very difficult, however, to say just what they do measure 
or what is their value once the will profile has been obtained. It 
is, however, an encouraging commencement, and it is to be hoped 
that some day psychology may have a test of volitional ability.° 





*** Some Volitional Patterns Revealed by Will Profiles,’ Jowrnal of 
Hapervmental Psychology, 1920, III, pp. 280-301. 

* An attempt by Norman C. Meier (Journal of Hducational Psychology, 
1923, XIV, pp. 385-395) to enquire into the validity and utility of the 
Downey tests resulted in an unfavorable verdict. 


CHAPTER VII 
FREEDOM OF THE WILL 


Necessitas autem finis non repugnat voluntati, quando ad finem non 
potest pervenire nisi uno modo. Sicut ex voluntate transeundi mare sit 
necessitas in voluntate, ut velit navem. Similiter etiam nec necessitas 
naturalis repugnat voluntati, quinimmo necesse est quod sicut intellectus 
ex necessitate inheret primis principiis, ita voluntas ex necessitate 
inherent ultimo fini, qui est beatitudo. 

St. Thomas, Summa Theologica, I. Q. LX XXII, art. i, corpus. 


FREEDOM is the ability to conceive of an end of action, and 
will the means by which it may be attained. Therefore, no being 
ean be free in this sense of the word unless he is capable of the 
perception of an end and of the relation of the means to the 
end that is perceived. We may also say that, given the insight 
into means and end, if a creature can will at all, its will is, and 
must be, free. Intelligence, therefore, which is the perception 
of relations, 1s the foundation and the guarantee of freedom. 
Perfect indifference to one end rather than another does not con- 
stitute freedom. The possession of freedom does not exclude all 
necessity in voluntary choice. In fact, all human beings by neces- 
sity, seek their own happiness. We are not free to will or not to 
will our own happiness. Willing our happiness is foreed upon us 
by nature. What constitutes happiness, however, is by no means 
perfectly clear. All sorts of things are apparently conducive 
to happiness. Wherefore, while necessitated by nature to seek 
to be happy, we are not necessitated by nature to seek happiness 
in any one way rather than another. Freedom, therefore, con- 
sists not in choosing to be happy, but in choosing the means that 
make us happy. One might think that this reduces freedom to 
a mere question of understanding, and does away with the will 
altogether. This isnotso. For, as a matter of fact, in the actual 
pursuit of happiness, we are not confronted by a purely intellect- 
ual problem. Seeking happiness involves the management of 
desires and impulses driving to contrary ends. Happiness has 
so many forms, and human beings have so many desires, that 

392 


FREEDOM OF THE WILL 393 


to know happiness and to seek it involves not only the power to 
understand ends and the relation of means to ends but the ability 
to drive the steeds in the chariot of human nature. 

St. Thomas Aquinas makes a comparison between axiomatic 
truths and plans of action. The intellect cannot refuse its assent 
to first principles, such as the whole is greater than any of its 
parts. Such truths necessitate the assent of the mind. If, how- 
ever, one attempts to lay down axiomatic truths and deduces 
one principle after another from them, as Spinoza did in his 
system of philosophy, one very soon comes to statements which 
no longer necessitate the assent of the mind, for their necessary 
connection with the first principles is no longer irresistibly evi- 
dent. In the same way there are certain courses of action which 
are evidently essential to happiness. Whenever this is so, the 
will chooses them by necessity, but may, nevertheless, be said to be 
truly free in the choosing. Thus, if a man, who earnestly desires 
to live longer and do something in this world, were in a burn- 
ing building, and an escape was open by one door but by no 
other, he would voluntarily, but also necessarily, choose to escape 
by that one door. In leaving by the door he would not be forced 
by any exterior power, his muscles would not be set in motion 
as they might be in a reflex action, but by the perception of the 
one means of escape which he would voluntarily choose. The 
end of human life should be the development of the will and 
intellect so that truth and goodness are so interwoven that the 
good is voluntarily chosen by necessity. 

In discussing the problem of freedom, the necessity which 
overhangs human life and activity has been considered from 
various points of view in different stages of mental development. 
Let us consider the various ways in which voluntary action 
might possibly be subject to one form of necessity or another. 

1. Can a human being’s actions, or at any rate the general 
course of his life, be determined by forces outside of himself? 
The prephilosophiec speculations, as found in the writings of the 
Greek poets, answer the question in the affirmative. Man’s life 
and sometimes his very actions were attributed to the indelible 
decrees of fate. (#dipus killed his father and married his 

26 


394 VOLITIONAL CONTROL 


mother, not in virtue of a voluntary choice, but because the fates 
had so decreed and it could not be otherwise. Nevertheless, one 
will find expressions in which even at this very early period the — 
responsibility of human beings for their own acts is recognized. 
Thus, Zeus says in the Odyssey: ‘‘Alas, how the mortals accuse 
the gods! They say that their evils come from us, when they 
themselves, by their own folly in violating destiny, bring misfor- 
tune upon themselves.”’ 

In modern times, the problem of the determination of human 
action by forces exterior to the individual has been transferred 
from the decrees of the fates to the fortunes and misfortunes of 
heredity. We may, therefore, ask ourselves: Does heredity deter- 
mine individual conduct? So far as we can see, heredity never 
determines any specific thought or action. No thoughts or actions 
are in themselves inherited. Heredity does not even deter- 
mine specific diseases, such as tuberculosis, but, according to 
the best authorities, it may determine a constitution which will 
more easily succumb to a tubereular infection than another. 
There is considerable evidence to show that heredity may deter- 
mine types of character, but there is no evidence to show that 
the acts themselves of human beings are predetermined by a 
fatal heredity. We may say that the type of burden that a 
human: being must bear, and to some extent its weight, is settled 
by his heredity. How far he shall bear it, the way in which 
he shall bear it, and what will happen to him on the way—these 
things are not determined by heredity, but by his own manage- 
ment of himself and the accidents of environment. 

2. Are human beings subjected, by necessity, to forces in- 
herent in their own nature? Socrates was the first to attempt to 
answer this question. He turned the attention of men away from 
the decrees of the fates to the forces that were resident within 
themselves. He was the first to become interested in moral 
problems, the first to develop an ethical system, and therefore, he 
gave considerable attention to the inner life of man. He perceived, 
just as St. Thomas did, the importance of understanding in 
voluntary action. He maintained that there is a final cause of 
every intelligent action, an end, that is, towards which it tends. 


FREEDOM OF THE WILL 395 


Some things are conceived of as good in themselves, others as 
useful to man. So far he and St. Thomas are in agreement. He 
raises the question, however, whether or not a man is bound to 
do what he perceives as merely better than something else. Must 
a man always choose what he thinks is better? Socrates says yes. 
It is here that he differs from the Thomistie view, which main- 
tains that the human will is necessitated only by what it perceives 
as absolutely and in all respects essential to happiness. Socrates 
pointed out that by intellectual training a man must attain to 
freedom. With him it was merely a question of knowledge. The 
virtue of temperance for Socrates does not exist. Everything is 
prudence, and knowledge determines action. Experience, how- 
ever, shows that those who can give advice are not always able 
to follow it, and that those who understand the wisdom of the 
advice that is given are not always able to take it. Knowledge 
does not determine. There are forces within our nature that 
place limits upon the ease with which we follow a line of action 
that the intellect dictates as the best. 

I once attempted to see whether or not the expectation of pain 
interfered with voluntary action, and contrived the following 
experiment: Subjects were asked to react with the quickest pos- 
sible movement on hearing the rap of a little hammer on an 
anvil. The movement was an outward rotation of the humerus 
with the forearm resting on a lever. As soon as the arm started 
to move, it sent a very painful shock from an induction coil 
through the leg of the subject. As soon as the subject completed 
an angle of 20° he turned off the current and thereby caused the 
pain of the stimulus to cease. The stimulus to react did not cause 
the shock, but the first movement produced the shock. This was 
explained to the subject and he was told that the quicker the 
movement the shorter the pain. Did the expectation of pain slow 
the reaction time? Did the idea that the quicker the movement 
the less the pain have a tendency to make the subject move with 
greater velocity through the given angle? The following results 
were obtained : 

In the accompanying table, No. refers to the number of ex- 
periments; R. Time, to the reaction time in five hundredths of 


VOLITIONAL CONTROL 


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FREEDOM OF THE WILL 397 


a second; M. V., to the mean variation; M. Time, to the move- 
ment time; R. D., to the difference between the reaction time 
followed by the painful stimulus and the reaction time which 
was unaccompanied by a painful stimulus; M. D., to the difference 
between the movement time accompanied by a painful stimulus 
and the movement time without any painful stimulus. The series 
were taken on different days, but always paired series painful 
and painless on the same day, but in different orders on different 
days. The reaction times and the movement times were both re- 
corded by a tuning fork vibrating five hundred times a second. 
The subjects were untrained in psychological experiment, with 
but one exception. 

From the averages given, we may conclude that there is a 
very definite tendency for the expectation of a painful stimulus 
to retard the movement of reaction by which the painful stimu- 
lus is inflicted. The expectation of the pain so paralyzes the 

motor mechanism in some subjects that they are unable to make 
- the subsequent movement as rapidly as under normal conditions, 
even though they know that the quicker they make the movement 
the shorter will be the duration of the pain. This was the case, 
however, with only two of the seven subjects. The remaining 
five showed no marked difference in the movement time under the 
two conditions. Whether or not this represents individual differ- 
ences in voluntary control or sensibility to the faradie current 
cannot be determined from the present experiment. 

What would happen to voluntary control if the expected 
pain were much greater and the effects more lasting than in 
our experiments? We ean readily conceive such a condition 
as would seriously interfere with voluntary control. Perhaps, 
under certain conditions of fear, responsibility in some persons 
would be done away with. But between this extreme condition 
and the simple ones in our experiments there is a considerable 
field in which pain, though it may retard voluntary action, does 
not render it impossible or take away responsibility entirely. 
Our experiments seem also to indicate that there is a difference 
in the power of different individuals to overcome by voluntary 
effort the inhibitory effects of fear, though we cannot rule out 


398 VOLITIONAL CONTROL 


entirely the possibility that the observed differences were due 
in our experiments to differences in the sensibility of the skin. 

It is interesting to note that subjects who manifested a 
marked difference in their reaction time under the two conditions 
were often entirely unconscious of any influence of the pain- 
ful expectation. 


It is clear, from ordinary experience and introspections, that 


the pleasant and the disagreeable facilitate and inhibit voluntary 
action. But it is not clear from ordinary experience that pleas- 
ure and pain are the only factors in human action, or that vol- 
untary acts are absolutely determined by emotional factors and 
impulsive drives. 

3. We may, therefore, ask the question: Is man, in any of his 
actions, ever truly the lord and master of his own will so that he 
is accountable for choosing one of the many roads to happiness 
rather than another? Here is the real crux of the problem of 
freedom. The question is one of fact and should not be deter- 
mined by metaphysical assumptions about the constitution of 
the world in general and human nature in particular. Leaving 
aside, therefore, all theory for the moment, let us consider the 
following facts: 

(a) Every man believes in his own responsibility. If aman 
by his own laziness and negligence should lose his position and 
his family come to want, he would not attribute their misfor- 
tune to the machinery of the cosmos, but would hold himself 
responsible for what had happened independent of any theory 
about the ultimate constitution of things. Every man believes 
in his own responsibility in regard to some things in his life, no 
matter what his metaphysical assumptions may be. 

(b) Every man holds other beings responsible for their 
actions. Law is built upon this belief in responsibility. If any- 
body injures you or those who are dear to you, you do not 
attribute the injury to the mechanism of the cosmos and let it 
go at that; you hold him responsible for what he has done. 

(c) Every man believes in the power of his own initiative. 
If anyone wants a position he does not wait for the mechanism 
of the cosmos to pick him up and place him in the position that 
he seeks. He bestirs himself, and he believes that if he is active 


FREEDOM OF THE WILL 399 


and tries hard, he has a better chance of getting a position than 
if he leaves everything to the hidden forces of nature. Experi- 
ence demonstrates that idleness leads to nothing, and action 
brings success, and everyone is convinced in practical life of the 
value of personal initiative. 

If these things are so, if we live and act upon these principles, 
then we should be honest and believe in what they imply. Re- 
sponsibility for action and the power of initiative imply free- 
dom. No machine has any power of initiative. No machine is 
responsible. We are convinced, by practical experience, of our 
personel responsibility and the power of initiative. We should, 
therefore, be willing to admit everything that this implies. The 
implication is freedom. We may not be able to explain it. We 
may not be able to understand why. But this does not rule out 
the fact. We cannot explain gravity, but we do not doubt it. 
Why, therefore, should we doubt freedom because we cannot 
explain it? Doubt about our freedom comes not from facts, not 
from experience, but from metaphysics. 

One metaphysical ground which leads many to deny the plain 
fact of freedom is the mechanistic view of the world. Nothing 
exists, according to this view, except matter and material energy. 
Everything is subject to the push and pull of mechanical forces. 
Knergy in the last analysis is nothing more or less than that 
which moves a mass with a given velocity. If, therefore, there is 
nothing in the world but energy and matter, naturally there can 
be no freedom. The great physical chemist, Ostwald, in 1894, 
pointed out certain considerations which he thought made it im- 
possible to apply the mechanical theory of energy to organic life 
and particularly the mental life of man. 

As the physicist, Hertz, has pointed out, an essential charac- 
teristic of the system of mechanical forces is their reversibility. 
One needs but to change the sign of velocity from plus to minus, 
wherever it may appear in the equations, and velocity is reversed 

*Ostwald, W., Chemische Theorie der Willensfretheit. Berichte iiber 
den Verhandlungen der Kéniglich sdchsischen Gesellschaft der Wissen- 
schaften zu Leipzig, XLIV, 1894, pp. 334-343. 


Jakob Hacks developed the same line of thought more fully in the 
Archiv fiir systematische Philosophie, 1899, V, pp. 202-214. 


400 VOLITIONAL CONTROL 


and everything moves in opposite directions. Thus, if the 
velocity of the earth were suddenly changed, the sun instead of 
setting would go back to its position at dawn. As far as we can 
see, in mechanical things, it makes very little ditference whether 
they move in one direction or the reverse. But Ostwald points 
out that it is characteristic of vital operations that they are not 
reversible. For some reason it is impossible that an oak should 
reverse the velocity of its molecules and return again to the con- 
dition of an acorn. Such things may be represented to us in 
the moving pictures by reversing the order of their presentation 
but involve, in reality, physical impossibilities. However that 
may be, it certainly makes an essential difference whether mental 
operations proceed in one way rather than another. If one listens 
to a speech, it is perfectly capable of being understood as 
delivered. If, however, the velocity of the movements of the 
speaker’s voice were to be reversed and the sounds should come 
to the hearer in reversed order, and his mental operations proceed 
from the end of the speech to the beginning, it certainly would 
make a much more profound difference than if the sun were to 
rise in the west and set in the east. Ostwald goes as far as to say: 

‘<TIn terrestrial phenomena, on the contrary, non-reversibility 
is not only the rule, but is in every individual case so clearly 
present that its proof offers no difficulties. And, conversely, 
special care must be observed whenever we have the problem of 
arranging almost reversible phenomena. In the face of such facts 
the mechanical hypothesis fails completely. It is precisely the 
characteristic peculiarity of actual events, their non-reversi- 
bility, that finds in pure mechanical phenomena no expression, 
and from that one can conclude with certainty that natural 
phenomena absolutely cannot be reversible.’’ 

At all events, such considerations as these should make one 
hesitate to blindly accept a mechanical view of the world which 
besides being doubtful from the scientific point of view cannot 
explain the facts of our mental life. 

Ostwald, in the same article, suggests an answer to a diffi- 
culty which has been frequently urged against the freedom of the 
will. The difficulty may be expressed as follows: The sum total 
of energy is a constant. No energy is ever created and none 


FREEDOM OF THE WILL 401 


is ever destroyed by any processes whatsoever that are known 
tomen. The law of energy holds not only in the physical world, 
but also in organic life. The energy of the food that a man 
consumes can be balanced with the amount of work that he 
performs. There is no place for the introduction of any energy 
into the cycle of events. If now, the will of man is free, and is 
going to influence the transformations of energy in the human 
organism, it is hard to see how this can be done without an in- 
fraction of the law of the conservation of energy. The will 
impulse, in order to change the parallelogram of forces, must 
itself enter as a force and cause a deviation in one way or another. 
It must either add to or subtract from the energy of the psychi- 
cal forces involved. To do this would be against the law of the 
conservation of energy. There is, therefore, no place for the 
action of the will. 

James suggested, in answer to the difficulty, that a great 
change might be effected in the action of the organism by the 
nervous discharge of a single cell, just as at the watershed an 
infinitesimal force might determine whether a drop of water 
flows into the Atlantic or Pacific. Such a trivial addition to the 
energy of the universe is not excluded by any experiments that 
have hitherto been made. 

Ostwald suggests another answer. He points out that cata- 
lyzers accelerate chemical reactions without themselves entering 
into these reactions. Thus, a change is worked in the play of 
physical energy which may be most remarkable and yet there is 
no apparent expenditure of physical energy to produce the 
change. If, therefore, says Ostwald, man had a means of in- 
fluencing the catalytical activities that transpire in the chemical 
phenomena that are associated with the mental, then he would 
have the possibility of accelerating or retarding these phenomena 
according to circumstances. The action, therefore, of the will 
would be no more a violation of the law of conservation of energy 
than is the action of the catalyzers. Whatever may be said about 
this view, at least it shows that there need be no fundamental 
contradiction between the law of the conservation of energy and 
the fact of the freedom of the will. 


CONCLUSION 
THE SOUL 


THE CONCEPT of the soul is in ill repute, not only in physiology 
and in biology, but also in psychology itself, which, by name, 
professes to be the science of the soul. This ill repute is so 
marked and so general that it is worth while, at the outset, to 
inquire into its origin. It may be traced to several factors. 

1. Descartes, who may be looked upon as the founder of 
modern philosophy, made the soul a spiritual thing that had 
no common qualities whatsoever with material substances. He 
gave it a definite location, suggesting that it might be in the 
pineal gland in the brain. This evidently is a wholly impossible 
concept. It likens the human organism to a machine. There 
are a series of cogwheels that represent the afferent circuit of 
impulses that come to the brain. There is another series of 
cogwheels that represent the efferent circuit that proceeds from 
the brain to the muscles, and the two series of cogwheels are 
connected by a spiritual cogwheel with no lkeness whatsoever 
to anything material. From Descartes’ day until the present, 
no one has been able to see how such a machine could be main- 
tained in action. This idea of the soul was foisted on modern 
philosophy by Descartes and has become more or less the popu- | 
lar concept in the minds of the people. Its impossibility leads 
naturally to its rejection, and so, from the Cartesian philosophy 
comes one reason why the soul concept is in disfavor. One may 
point out that the soul is- incapable of localization. But one 
cannot look upon it merely on this account as an impossi- 
ble chimera. | 

In scholastic philosophy, not only was there no attempt made 
to localize the soul, but it was conceived of as existing everywhere 
in the body. This idea of the ubiquity of the soul in the body 
seems, at first sight, strange and impossible, and, nevertheless, 
it has its analogy in physical science, and no one regards the 

402 


THE SOUL 403 


analogy as strange and impossible. Gravity is a force by means 
of which every particle of matter is said to attract every other 
particle of matter in inverse proportion to the square of the 
difference between them. Where is gravity? No one has ever 
attempted to localize gravity in any one of the planets. It is 
everywhere and anywhere. We recognize its existence and yet 
we do not know what it is nor how it produces its effect in the 
organization of the heavenly bodies into a system. What gravity 
is to the universe, the soul is to the human body. Conceived of 
in this way, there is no inherent contradiction in the soul con- 
cept, and the prejudice which is due to Descartes’ concept, lacks 
all foundation. ) 

2. Van Helmont (1577-1644), the first chemical physiologist, 
attempted to explain certain physiological processes by the ac- 
tivity of a number of special spiritual forees, each one of which 
had a particular function to perform. He thought that in man 
_there are a number of such forees, a hierarchy of powers, supreme 
among which was the rational soul. He invented two terms, 
one of which to-day we ean count a part of our language, but the 
other, along with his soul concept, has fallen into disuse. The 
term ‘‘gas’’ comes from him, a fanciful word which he coined 
to signify the product of fermentation. In like manner, he for- 
mulated the word ‘‘blas’’ to designate those spiritual forces 
that were supposed to perform physiological functions. Physi- 
ology rightly rejected the concept of the ‘‘blas’’ performing the 
function of hydrochloric acid and pepsin in gastrie digestion. 
Not only was every such concept rejected, but suspicion was 
transferred from the ‘‘blas’’ of van Helmont to every concept 
of spiritual power whatsoever that might be conceived of in the 
human organism. 

3. Another source of prejudice against the concept of the 
soul is to be found in the result of metaphysical speculation in 
the first half of the nineteenth century. Philosophy, receiving a 
new impulse from the Kantian theory of knowledge, passed on 
from epistemology to cosmology and attempted to develop a 
purely metaphysical explanation of nature. German philosophy 
attempted to follow the whole course of nature by analyzing the 


4.04 CONCLUSION 


concept of being. It ran its course, however, and accomplished 
nothing in the world of physics. In the meantime, experimental 
science made vast strides in its own field by empirical methods. 
The comparison between the bankruptcy of philosophy that re- 
sulted from the wild speculations of German idealism and the 
solid and permanent successes of physical science, could not 
escape the observation of every man of thought. This resulted 
in a prejudice against all forms of philosophic speculation, a 
prejudice natural, but illogical. Philosophy became bankrupt by 
extending its speculations outside the field of its own investiga- 
tion. This led to prejudice against its concepts. The concept 
of the soul, therefore, fell into disrepute because it was a philo- 
sophie concept, not because any arguments were adduced to 
demonstrate its insufficiency. 

4, The trend of thought which culminated in experimental 
psychology centred its interests in the states of mind themselves, 
above all, sensations and emotions. Psychology was accordingly 
defined as the science of mental processes, and psychologists 
studied states of mind and paid no further attention to the philo- 
sophical problem of the soul. Very soon it was said that psy- 
chology had gotten rid of the idea of the soul. And so it did, not 
by destructive criticism, but simply by neglect. 

From this survey of the history of the concept of the soul, 
the reason for prejudice is evident. The modern scientific mind 
fears lest metaphysics should supplant physics, and hence has 
resulted what might well be termed a psychophobia. It is time, 
however, to return to this neglected problem of the soul, discuss 
it on its merits and see whether or not the soul ean have a place 
in the philosophy of the mind without encroaching upon the 
grounds of empirical science. 

How was it, we may ask, that man arrived at the concept 
of the soul in the first instance? It is very likely that primitive 
man’s argument for the existence of the soul was based upon the 
profound difference that exists between life and death. The dead 
body seems to lack something which the living body possesses; 
something apparently is not acting which was acting before. 
The chemical reaction of the tissue changes. The body digests 


THE SOUL 405 


itself in its own ferments. It no longer resists the action of 
organisms of putrefaction. A profound change has come about 
which suggests to us, as it did to primitive man, that a principle 
of coordination has ceased to act. The heart evidently has ceased 
to beat. But is the circulatory system the sole source of codrdin- 
ation in the human organism, which involves not only physiologi- 
cal but also psychological processes? Primitive man jumped 
to the idea of the soul to account for the difference between life 
and death. There is nothing in science to show that this con- 
clusion is impossible. In fact, there are considerations to which 
the biologist, Driesch, in his Science and Philosophy of the 
Organism, has called our attention, which lead to the conclusion 
that there must be in the living organism a principle of coordina-.- 
tion. Driesch’s argument may be outlined as follows: 

1. There are certain facts centring around the growth of the 
organism which cannot be explained without the assumption 
of a vital principle. First of all, there is the general fact of the 
rrowth of every organism from one single fertilized ovum. The 
ova of the different species differ very little from one another. 
And, nevertheless, each one grows up and becomes a represen- 
tative that bears all the many characteristics of its species. What 
is it that causes this wonderful coordination of growth from the 
beginning to the end of development ? 

2. Suppose that you cut off a salamander’s foreleg near the 
shoulder joint. What happens? It regenerates. The stump 
not only reproduces the upper arm, of which it is a fragment, 
but also the forearm with its radius and ulna and the hand with 
its carpus, metacarpus and phalanges. 

3. Suppose, after the ovum of a marine organism has divided 
into two cells, we should shake them apart. What happens? 
Does each cell develop one half of the organism? No. Each 
cell develops a complete organism, smaller perhaps than nor- 
mal, but complete in all its parts. This result may be obtained 
not only by shaking, but much more easily by precipitating the 
calcium in the sea water. This acts just as if a cement substance 
were removed, the cells of the ova divide, but do not remain 


4.06 CONCLUSION 


together. If now they be removed to normal sea water, each 
fragment develops a complete embryo and not a part of an embryo. — 

The question now arises, says Driesch, can these facts be ac- 
counted for by any mechanical factors of growth? He divides 
the possible factors of explanation into external and internal, 
analyzes them and rules out each in turn. 

1. Internal Factors.—It has been pointed out that living mat- 
ter is forced to assume a cellular structure by the same laws of 
surface tension that we see in activity in the formation of soap 
bubbles or the production of lather when one gets ready to shave 
himself in the morning. Thus, it is maintained that cellular 
structure is due to the phenomenon of surface tension. Cells 
divide when the size of the cell is such in relation to the surface 
tension of the fluid of which it is composed that it can no longer 
exist as a unit, but mechanically divides in two. Granted that 
organic substance is a fluid, it must certainly follow the laws of 
fluids. The size of its cells will vary with its viscosity. And so 
the general law may account for its fundamental character of 
cellular structure. It is easily seen, however, that what accounts 
for cellular structure in general does not explain the architec- 
ture of the species. It may show why all living organisms are 
composed of cells. It does not show, however, why the ovum of 
a starfish does not produce a mushroom, a toad, a lion or a man. 
Surface tension no more accounts for specific architectural struc- 
ture than the properties of clay can tell us why in one ease bricks 
are put together to build a barn and in another form a bank, 
a private dwelling or a church. The same thing may be said 
of osmotie pressure or the unknown X which causes growth or 
explains the peculiar phenomena associated with cell division. 
All organisms grow, how and why we do not know; but over and 
above what causes growth in general, there must be something 
else that makes growth specific, leading in any given ovum 
always to one and the same specific architectonic result. 

2. External Factors.—There are a number of external fae- 
tors that are necessary for growth. Without a certain degree 
of heat, without oxygen, without certain salts for germs that 
develop in sea water, normal growth cannot take place, or per- 


THE SOUL 407 


haps is wholly impossible. It is evident, however, that these 
external factors are necessary conditions in formative causes. 
They no more explain specific structure than does the fact that a 
ehureh cannot be built in zero weather when the mortar freezes, 
tells us why it develops into a Gothic cathedral rather than a 
Roman basilica. 

Driesch then asks whether or not there is any chemical 

means of directing these general external and internal factors 
so that they produce a specific structure. Could, for instance, a 
chemical substance, e.g., a specific protein, determine a struc- 
tural formation? Something akin to this seems to be the case in 
erystals, where simple geometric figures are involved. But even 
here we do not know the ultimate reason why a certain chemical 
substance always crystallizes into shapes which are definite and 
characteristic. In the simpler forms of such structures, we can 
understand why the fitting in of one form into another is deter- 
mined by the geometric arrangement of its surfaces. But no 
‘superposition of geometric elements could explain the struc- 
ture of any one bone of the human body, much less such an irregu- 
lar bone as the temporal with its petrous and squamous por- 
tions, its zygomatic, styloid, and mastoid processes, to say nothing 
of the semicircular canals and the small bones of the middle 
ear. Once growth is in progress, according to definite laws, a 
chemical substance may retard or accelerate it, thus, producing 
specific abnormalities as in cretinism and acromegaly. But, actu- 
ally to determine architectural structure is not the function of 
any chemical substance. And even though it were so, it would 
still remain a mystery how and why the stump of the humerus 
could determine not only its own regeneration, but also the re- 
growth of entirely different bones, such as the radius, the ulna, 
the carpus, metacarpus, and phalanges, with all their specific 
protuberances and cavities and irregularities. 

Driesch then asks whether or not some kind of machine located 
in the germ micht be the cause of the product. This was the idea 
which lay at the root of Weissmann’s germinal Anlagen. What 
do we understand by a machine? Driesch defines it as follows: 

‘‘A machine is a typical configuration of physical and chemi- 


408 CONCLUSION 


cal constituents by the acting of which a typical effect is attained.’’ 
Suppose that such a machine exists in the fertilized ovum or in 
the much more developed gastrula. If now you divide a gas-— 
trula in two, the remaining halves do the work of the whole, and 
two complete organisms result. Or, if you shake the embryo 
apart in the two, four or eight cell stage, you get two, four or 
eight organisms. Must you assume that there are as many 
machines in the ovum as there are possible complete organisms 
that may be obtained by shaking apart the cells of the embryo? 
Can you break a machine in two and have the machine recon- 
struct itself and then reconstruct the organism? Such a possi- 
bility makes the assumption of a machine superfluous, and shows 
that there is something in the ovum of a non-mechanical nature 
which determines its growth and development. What, says 
Driesch, is this determining factor? He maintains that one is 
led by exclusion to conelude that there exists a non-mechanical 
vital principle. What shall we name it, he says? What it was 
first named in Greek philosophy by Aristotle, the first to con- 
ceive its function in clear terms? Aristotle called it an entelechy. 
This term was translated in scholastic philosophy as forma sub- 
stantialis, the equivalent of the modern word ‘‘soul.’’? 

urged from Morgan’s view of the localization of Mendelian determinants 
in the germ plasm. If one assumed that these determinants are definite 
chemical substances, one might argue that whatever theory might say about 
the possibility of a chemical substance determining structure, the fact 
remained that the chemical substances constituting the Mendelian deter- 
minants do determine the structures with which they are related. It is not 
certain, however, that the Mendelian determinants are definite chemical 
substances. Even dynamical elements are capable of localization. Further- 
more, some Mendelian characteristics are not so much qualitative as they 
are quantitative. Thus, for instance, long hair or short hair, kinky hair 
or straight hair, might be due to the quantity of a certain substance in the 
germ cells that would later be used in developing hair. Thus many Men- 
delian characteristics could be explained as quantitative and therefore due 
to some excess or defect of a certain substance in the germ plasm. And 
whatever might be the explanation of individual characteristics, the assem- 
bling of all the parts of an organism and the characteristics which modify 
these parts into one structural unit is itself a phenomenon of codrdination 
that demands an explanation. 


THE SOUL 409 


Let us turn now from biological to philosophical considera- 
tions. What does philosophy tell us about the soul? The facts 
of our mental life constitute the realm of our experience. Noth- 
ing can be more intimate to us, nor more certain, than the fact 
of conscious experience itself. The original task of psychology 
was to account for this conscious experience. Our mental states 
are phenomena that come and go, actions or activities of some 
kind or another. What is it that is conscious? What is active 
when we are aware of any one of the many forms of conscious 
experience? There are three possibilities to be taken into con- 
sideration: | 

(1) Either the brain thinks, that is, material substanee 
is the substrate of conscious processes ; 

(2) Or the non-material thinks, that is, the soul thinks; 

(8) Or neither the mind nor the soul thinks, but we have 
conscious processes and these alone. 

The latter was the view of Wundt. Let us consider Wundt’s 
view in the first place. It is hard for one who has not grown 
up in familiarity with German philosophy to understand the 
position of Wundt. Immanuel Kant maintained that we can 
never know whether or not there is any such thing as a sub- 
stanee, a Ding an sich, or thing in itself that underlies the phe- 
nomena of experience. All we know is that we cannot conceive 
of action without something acting, or accidents without an 
underlying substance. Then Fichte came along, with a mis- 
placed drive to perfect honesty, and maintained: If we do not 
know that there is any ‘‘thing in itself,’’ let us deny its existence 
and say that it does not exist—an attitude much less logical 
than that of Kant. Therefore, Fichte developed his philosophy 
of action in which there was motion without anything moving; 
action without anything acting. He himself, however, could 
not endure such a contradiction and later in life gave up 
his philosophy of action for the philosophy of being in which 
substance regained its place in his mind. Such a concept, 
however, prepared the way for Wundt. Wundt, having studied 
conscious processes as the object of psychological research, main- 
tained, in analogy with Fichte, that conscious processes them- 

27 


410 CONCLUSION 


selves constituted the reality of the mind, so that it was 
neither the brain that thought nor the soul that thought; neither 
materialism nor spiritualism is right, but instead of that the — 
philosophy of action maintained the primacy and sole existence 
of the conscious processes themselves. However, this position 
of Wundt is no more tenable than that of Fichte. We simply 
cannot conceive of action without anything acting, or motion 
without anything moving, thought without anything or anybody 
thinking, sensations without anything or anybody sensing, ete. 
Given conscious processes, they must be the activities of some 
underlying substance. This substance is either material or it is 
spiritual, either the brain or the soul. It is not material. If 
identities are to be identical, and explanations are to explain, 
we cannot identify our mental life with chemical reactions or 
explain consciousness in terms of energy, which is merely that 
which moves a mass with a given velocity. If one takes the 
mechanical view of life at its face value, it is nothing but a 
series of chemical reactions in which molecules, made of atoms, 
disintegrate one by one and new molecules are formed with the 
elimination, or by the aid, of heat. Does this view explain how 
a chemical reaction can be conscious of itself, or how one chemi- 
cal reaction can be conscious of another? Suppose that by the 
invention of a wonderful X-ray microscope we could see the 
chemical reactions and the shifting of the elements that take 
place in the retina when a ray of light impinges upon it. Sup- 
pose by means of this same instrument we could follow whatever 
changes take place in the optic nerve and in the various way 
stations on back to the occipital cortex, and suppose here we 
could see a number of dancing atoms. Would we be able to 
identify this dance of atoms with the sensation of red, or would 
we have first to look and see what kind of light impinged upon 
the subject’s eye in order first to find out what was taking place 
in his brain? The dancing atoms have no identity whatsoever 
with, they do not even bear a resemblance to, a sensation. They 
eannot, therefore, explain even sensation, let alone the higher 
thought processes and the activity of the will. If, therefore, 
there must be some substrate of conscious processes, something 


THE SOUL 411 


which is active when the mind is conscious, and if this cannot 
be a material substance, then there must be a non-material sub- 
stance, that is to say, a spiritual substance or soul. Philosophy 
in this way confirms the conclusion of biology. 

We may now ask ourselves whether or not this spiritual sub- 
stance or soul is capable of surviving bodily death. Everything 
In science goes to show that nothing whatsoever is either added 
to or taken away from the sum total of that which goes to make up 
the universe that we know. Man is just as incapable of annihila- 
ting as he is of creating. Once a thing is, it does not cease to be 
except by the same creative power that brought it into existence. 
We have no reason to suppose that in this respect the immaterial 
world is any different from the physical. If, therefore, the 
organism disintegrates, its parts remain in existence. The soul 
as the principle of coordination, and the stream of conscious life 
remains also in existence. It can no longer exercise, however, 
_all its powers. There is no organism for it to coordinate. There 
are no sense organs by means of which it can receive new im- 
pressions. If, therefore, its conscious life were wholly dependent 
upon the sense organs, though the soul itself would continue 
to exist, conscious immortality would be impossible. We have 
seen, however, in discussing the conceptual theory of voluntary 
action, that over and above sensations we have also ideals and 
concepts that have no bodily organ. That being the case, those 
conscious elements which are not dependent upon the activity 
of bodily organs do not cease with the disintegration of the 
organs on which they do not depend. We have no guarantee 
from philosophy alone that such a continuation of existence 
would, in any sense of the word, be desirable. Philosophy may 
show that it is inevitable and eternal. Divine revelation alone 
can guarantee the happiness of eternal life. | 


GLOSSARY OF TECHNICAL TERMS 


A 

Aboral. Belonging to the part of an 
organism away from the mouth. 

Abreaction, Giving free vent to 
emotional expression. 

Accommodation. Adjustment of the 
eye to near and far vision. 

Accommodation, Muscles of. The 
muscles whick control the curva- 
ture of the lens and so adapt it 
to near and far vision. 

Accommodation Reflex. Contrac- 
tion and dilation of the pupil on 
focussing the eye on a near or far 
point. 

Acromegaly. <A disease im which 
the bones of the hands, feet and 
face are enlarged, due to over- 
secretion of a gland in the brain 
known as the hypophysis or 
pituitary body. 

Adrenalin. A substance secreted by 
two glands one located close to 
each kidney (hence termed ad- 
renal glands). As Cannon has 
shown adrenalin is secreted in 
violent emotions and produces a 
series of effects in the organism. 
See p. 126 ff. 

Afferent. A term applied to nerve 
fibres that lead to the centre. 
Sensory fibres are afferent. Op- 
posed to efferent, q.v. 

Agonists. The muscles involved in 
the execution of a movement. Op- 
posed to antagonists. 

Amblyopia. Dulness of vision. 

Amnesia. Loss of memory. 

Anesthesia. Loss of sensation. 


412 


Angina Pectoris. A disease due to 
spasmodic constriction of the 
main arteries of the heart muscle 
causing violent attacks of pain 
referred to the region of the chest 
in front of the heart. Such 
attacks are frequently brought on 
by emotional excitement. 

Anlagen, Weissmann’s Germinal. 
The supposed loci in the fertilized 
ovum from which, according to 
Weissmann, the various parts of 
the body are developed. 

Anode. The positive pole of an 
electric battery, so called because 
gases, in electrolysis, ascend (avd 
up) at the anode. But cf. Science, 
LIX, 163. 

Antagonists. The muscles opposed 
to those involved in a movement. 
Anterior Roots. Bundles of nerve 
fibres that come from cells in the 
anterior horns of gray matter in 
the spinal cord and go to supply 

the muscles of the body. 


Aorta. The large artery that 
carries blood away from the 
heart. 

Aphasia. Loss of the ability to 
speak, 

Appetitive. A term used in this 


work to indicate the group of 
mental states that may be re- 
garded as reactions of the mind. 
See schema, p. 50. 

Apraxia. Loss of the power to per- 
form previously learned habitual 
acts, due to an organic injury of 
the brain. 


GLOSSARY OF TECHNICAL TERMS 


Architectonic. Having the fune- 
tion of superintendence and con- 
trol; constructed according to a 
plan. 

Arteriosclerosis. Hardening of the 
arteries. 

Association Fibres of the White 
Matter. Nerve fibres that run in 
the white matter of the brain 
connecting one part or gyrus of 
the cortex with another. 

Asymbolia, Loss of the power to 
interpret symbols and gestures. 

Ataxia. A loss of the power to co- 
ordinate movement leading to 
awkwardness with hands or legs. 

Atrophy. <A wasting of tissue 
leading to its decrease in size. 

Auto-eroticism, Causing sexual 
satisfaction by self-excitement; 
fixation of love on one’s self to the 
exclusion of external objects. 


B 


Bone Conduction. Conduction of 
sound through the bones of the 
skull to the inner ear, e.g., when 
the handle of a vibrating tuning 
fork is placed somewhere on the 
head. Increased bone conduction 
is a sign of middle ear disease. 


Cc 


Calcareous. Chalky. 

Carcinoma. Cancer. 

Cardiac. Pertaining to the heart. 

Cardiovascular, Pertaining to the 
heart and blood vessels. 

Carotid Plexus. A network of 
sympathetic nerves surrounding 
the internal carotid artery. 

Carpus. The eight bones of the 
wrist. 


413 


Categorical Imperative. A phrase 
used by Kant to designate the 
fundamental law of morality to 
do good and avoid evil. 

Cathartic Method. The method 
that attempts to cure a mental 
condition by discovering some 
buried emotionally toned memory 
and opening up the patient’s past 
as a physician opens a boil and 
lets out the pus. 

Catheter. A tube usually used in 
artificially emptying the bladder; 
often made of soft rubber and 
capable of being inserted into a 
vein, 

Cathode. The negative pole of an 
electric battery, so called because, 
in electrolysis, metals are thrown 
down (xard, down) or deposited 
at the cathode. But ef. Science, 
LIX, 163, 

Caudate Nucleus, One of a pair 
of masses of gray matter in the 
brain, consisting of a head that 
tapers to a long recurved tail. 
The caudate nucleus forms part 
of the floor of the lateral ven- 
tricles. Its function is still under 
investigation, but among other 
things it seems to have something 
to do with the regulation of the 
body temperature by way of con- 
stricting and dilating the blood 
vessels. 

Cell. The unit from which is built 
up all living tissue. It consists 
of a cell wall, the cell contents, 
or protoplasm, and a nucleus. 

Central End. The end of a nerve 
leading to the cord, or the end of 
a bone nearest the body. Opposed 
to distal, the end away from the 
centre or body. 


414 
Centripetal. Going to a centre, as 
centripetal stimuli, i.e., those 


that go to the cord or brain. 
Opposed to centrifugal, those that 
go to a muscle or organ of the 


body. 
Cerebellum. Literally the ‘“ little 
brain.” A large ganglionic mass 


located posteriorly beneath the 
cerebrum. It has to do with the 
codrdination of movement and 
equilibrium. 

Cerebral. Pertaining to the brain. 

Cerebrospinal. Pertaining to the 
brain and spinal cord, as the 
cerebrospinal fluid. 

Cerebrum. The brain: 

Cervical Region. The part of the 
spinal cord which gives rise to 
the nerves that supply the neck 
and arms and is characterized by 
an enlargement known as_ the 
cervical enlargement. 

Chiasm, Optic. The place at which 
the two optic nerves meet and 
where some of their fibres cross 
and go to the opposite side of the 
brain, the remaining fibres con- 
tinuing to the same side of the 
brain. 

Chloroplasts. Green granules in 
the cells of plants, otherwise 
known as chlorophyl bodies. 

Chorea. A term used to describe 
an involuntary jerking of the 
muscles now in one part of the 
body, now in another. Often used 
to designate the disease known as 
Sydenham’s chorea or chorea 
minor, in which this involuntary 
jerking is the most characteristic 
symptom. 

Choreiform. Resembling the 
tremors found in chorea. 


GLOSSARY OF TECHNICAL TERMS 


Chromosome, One of a number of 
fragments into which the dark 
staining matter of the nucleus of © 
a cell breaks up when cell division 
is about to take place in the 
process of growth or repair. Each 
species has a definite number of 
chromosomes in its body cells, 
and half that number in its germ 
cells. The chromosomes are re 
garded as the bearers of all 
hereditary traits. 

Ciliary Nerves. The nerves that 
supply the ciliary muscles of the 
eye, on whose action the curvature 
of the lens and therefore the 
focus point of the eye depends. 

Circulatory. Pertaining to the cir- 
culation or flow of blood in the 
arteries and veins. 

Collaterals, Branches given off 
from the long axis cylinder pro- 
cess of a nerve cell, 

Colliculus. One of four similarly 
shaped protuberant ganglia in 
the mid-brain grouped in two 
pairs, the superior and inferior 
colliculi (or corpora quadrigem- 
ina in the older terminology). 

The superior have to do with 
visual, the inferior with auditory 
reflexes. 

Conative. Characterized by an 
element of striving. A term used 
in this work to group together 
impulse, desire, and instinct as 
conative mental states. , 

Concatenated, Chained together. 

Cones. Microscopic structures in 
the retina of the eye which are 
affected by rays of light giving 
rise to a stimulus that is trans- 
mitted to the brain and perceived 
as light. The cones are supposed 


GLOSSARY OF TECHNICAL TERMS 


by some to be concerned with color 
vision, while the rods (q.v.) react 
only to degrees of brightness. 

Corrugator Supercilii. The 
“wrinkler of the eyebrow,” a 
muscle which draws the eyebrow 
to the centre, causing an expres- 
sion of pain or grief when it acts 
on one side only. 

Cortex. Literally bark, that is, an 
outer covering. A word used to 
designate the outer covering of 
gray matter that spreads over the 
brain. 

Cortical Tangential Fibres, Fibres 
located in the outermost layer 
of the cerebral cortex running par- 
allel with its surface. 

Cosmology. The philosophy of 
nature. 

 Cretinism, A disease due to lack of 
secretion of the thyroid gland. 

Crustacean. One of a class of 
animals, such as the crab, that 
have a hard shell which they shed 
periodically. 

Curare. A drug, originally used as 
an arrow poison, which paralyzes 
all the voluntary muscles of the 
body by preventing nerve im- 
pulses passing through the termi- 
nal structures of the nerves in 
the muscles. 

Curarize. To bring under the in- 
fluence of curare, that is, to 
render the muscles incapable of 
being stimulated by stimulating 
the nerves. 

Cutaneous. Pertaining to the skin. 


D 


Deiters’ Nucleus. A group of cells 
in the upper part of the medulla 


oblongata (qg.v.) that receives 


415 


fibres from the semicircular canals 
(our end organ of equilibrium) 
and transmits stimuli (by way of 
the posterior longitudinal fascic- 
ulus) to the body muscles and the 
centres for eye and head move- 
ments. It therefore codrdinates 
eye, head and body in the process 
of maintaining equilibrium. 

‘Dementia Precox. A term used by 

_‘Kraepelin to designate what he 
regarded as a unit mental” dis- 
ease (with, however, various sub- 
forms) characterized by early 
dementia (that is general disinte- 
gration of the mind). The de- 
mentia is usually preceded by 
peculiar bizarre behavior, loss of 
interest in the outside world, lack 
of correspondence between intel- 
lectual states and their emotional 
expression, hallucinations and de- 
lusions. Kraepelin regarded the 
disease as a result of disordered 
function of the sex glands. Others 
look upon it as wholly or in part 
due to mental reactions to the dif- 
ficulties of life. 

Dementia Senilis. Mental disinte- 
gration coming on as the effect of 
old age. 

Diabetic. Pertaining to the dis- 
ease known as diabetes in which 
sugar and starch cannot be 
properly utilized by the body and 
so glucose appears in the urine. 

Distal. Pertaining to the end (e.g., 
of a nerve fibre) away from the 
centre. Opposed to central. 

Dynamometer. An instrument for 
measuring the force of the grip 
of the hand. 

Dyspnea. Difficulty of breathing. 


416 


E 

Echolalia. Echo speaking; a path- 
ological condition in which the 
patient repeats the last few words 
of everything that is said to him. 

Echopraxia. A pathological con- 
dition in which the patient imi- 
tates every movement that is 
made before him. 

Efferent. Leading away from the 
centre, as the nerve impulses that 
go to the muscles. 

Embryo. The fertilized ovum in 
its earlier stages of development. 


Embryology. The science of the 
development of the fertilized 
ovum. 

Emetic. A drug that produces 


vomiting. 

Emotional Resonance. 
Resonance, emotional. 

Encephalitis. Inflammation of the 
brain. A word often used at 
present for “sleeping sickness ”’ 
or encephalitis lethargica in which 
a comatose condition is often a 
marked symptom. 

Encephalon, The brain. 

Encysted. Fnclosed in a cyst or 
outer covering. Some one-celled 
organisms, as Euglena and 
ameba, have the power of en- 
cysting themselves when the me- 
dium in which they live becomes 
in some way unfavorable and 
threatens life. 

Endocrinopathy. A disorder of the 
glands of internal secretion. 

Endogenous. Produced by factors 
within the organism. 

End Organs. Structures in which 
the nerve fibres terminate on 
arriving at their destination and 
which no doubt have something 


See 


GLOSSARY OF TECHNICAL TERMS 


to do in carrying out the special 
function of the nerve. 

Endothelial. Pertaining to endo- 
thelium, %.e., the special type of 
cellular tissue that lines the body 
cavities and the interior of the 
blood vessels. 

Entelechy. Aristotle’s name for 
the soul or the principle of life. 
Epidermis. The outer layers of. 
skin tissue or the outermost and 
uppermost layer in the structure 

of the leaf. 

Epilepsy. A disease characterized 
by periodic convulsive seizures in 
which the patient is unconscious 
and in which he often does him- 
self serious injury by falling. 

Epileptiform. Resembling the con- 
vulsions found in true epilepsy. 

Epistemology. A science which 
deals with the theory of knowl- 
edge and its validity. 

Ergograph. An instrument for 
measuring the amount of work 
done by a group of muscles. 

Error, Probable. The amount by 
which any average obtained by 
observation, or a ratio such as 
correlation, may just as likely as 
not exceed or fall short of the 
true average or ratio. The prob- 
able error is an index of the relia- 
bility of an observation. The 
smaller the probable error the 
more likely the observed average, 
or correlation obtained, represents 
actual conditions. 

Etiological. Pertaining to causal 
factors. 

Etiology. The scientific knowledge 
of the causes of any condition. 
Exogenous. Produced by factors 

outside the organism. 


GLOSSARY OF TECHNICAL TERMS 


External Geniculate Body. See 
Geniculate body, external 


Extracapsular. Outside the capsule. 


F 


Facialis, The seventh cranial or 
facial nerve. which supplies all 
the muscles of expression. 

Faradic Current, The current pro- 
duced by an induction coil. 

Fascia Lata. A broad dense layer of 
connective tissue over the muscles 
of the thigh, often used in surgery 
to transplant where a covering of 
tissue is needed. 

Fasciculus. A bundle of fibres. 

Fasciculus, Posterior Longi- 
tudinal, A bundle of nerve fibres 
running from the mid-brain to the 
spinal cord connecting the eye 
muscles and the inner ear with the 
muscles of the body. 

Femoral Vein. See Vein, femoral. 

Fiat. Literally, “ Let it be done.” A 
word often used to designate the 
voluntary act of decision. 

Fissure of Sylvius. See Sylvius, 
fissure of. 

Flatus Vocis. The breath of the 
voice; the spoken name. 

Flexibilitas Cerea. A_ peculiar 
condition of muscular tonus that 
maintains the members of the 
body more or less indefinitely in 
any position in which they may 
be placed. The symptom is found 
in what is known as the catatonic 
forms of dementia precox and in 
one of the stages of hypnosis. 


Flexion. Bending; opposed to ex- 
tension, stretching. : 


Foci of Infection. Places in which 
infectious material is localized. 


ALT 


Foetus. The undeveloped, unborn 
child. 
Frontalis, A muscle under the skin 


of the forehead which produces 
the transverse folds indicative of 
surprise. 

Functional. A term used to desig- 
nate an abnormality, ¢.g., paraly- 
sis, deafness, ete., which is not 
due to a physical injury, but 
rather to a mental state. 


G 


Galvanometer. An instrument for 
detecting the presence of an elec- 
tric current and measuring its 
strength by the swing of a sus- 
pended needle or mirror. 

Ganglia Subcortical. The cerebral 
ganglia located beneath the cor- 
tex as the caudate nucleus, the 
lenticular nucleus and the 
thalamus. 

Ganglion. (plural, Ganglia). A 
group of nerve cells usually mani- 
festing itself by a slight swelling 
in the path of a nerve or a pro- 
tuberance in the brain. 

Ganglion, Gasserian. The large 
extracerebral ganglion in the path 
of the fifth cranial or trigeminal 
nerve. 

Ganglion, Sympathetic. A group 
of nerve cells in the sympathetic 
nervous system. There is a chain 
of these ganglia on either side of 
the spinal column. 

Gasserian Ganglion. See Ganglion, 
gasserian. 

Gastrointestinal, Pertaining to 
stomach and intestines. 

Gastrula. A stage of development 
in animal organisms in which the 


418 


organism is cup-shaped and con- 
sists of two layers of cells. 
Geniculate Body. One of four 
cerebral ganglia grouped in two 
pairs, external and internal. The 
external geniculate bodies are 
subcortical centres for visual re- 
flexes, and the internal for audi- 
tory reflexes. 
Glossopharyngeal. 


supplies the muscles of the upper 
part of the pharynx and transmits 
touch and taste stimuli from the 
posterior third of the tongue, the 
fauces and the uvula. 

Glycosuria. A condition in which 
sugar is secreted in the urine. 

Golgi, End Organs of. See Neuro- 
tendinous end organs. 

Gyrus. One of the folds of the cor- 
tex of the brain, termed also a 
convolution. 

Gyrus, Postcentral. The cerebral 
convolution behind the fissure of 
Rolando in which the pathways 
of touch sensation have their 
terminus. 

Gyrus, Precentral. The cerebral 
convolution in front of the fissure 
of Rolando, stimulation of which 
leads to definite movements. The 
motor centre of the brain. 


H 


Heterosexual. One who is attracted 
by those of the opposite sex. Used 
also as an adjective. 

Histology. The science that treats 
of the microscopic structure of 
the tissues of the body and its 
various organs. 


Pertaining to 
the ninth cranial nerve which 


GLOSSARY OF TECHNICAL TERMS 


Homosexual. One who is attracted 
by those of the same sex. Used 
also as an adjective. 

Horns, Anterior and Posterior. 
The gray matter of the spinal 
cord is arranged so that in cross- 
sections it has something of the 
figure of an H. The four corners 
of the H are known as “horns”: 
Two anterior, which contain the 
motor cells of the muscles of the 
body; and two posterior whose 
function is sensory. 


Humerus, The bone of the upper 
arm. 
Hydrocephalus. Dilation of the 


head due to an accumulation of 
cerebrospinal fluid. 

Hypermetropia. Farsightedness, a 
defect of vision. 

Hypertrophy. Overgrowth. 

Hysteria. A mental disorder mani- 
festing itself in peculiar seizures 
often resembling epileptic fits, or 
in paralyses, deafness, peculiar 
areas of loss of sensation, but for 
which disabilities there is no 
anatomical basis. One can, how- 
ever, often detect some advantage 
that a patient reaps out of an 
hysterical disability. 

Hysterical. Pertaining to hysteria; 
functionally caused and not due 
to an organic injury. 


I 


Ideomotor. Pertaining to the 
theory that all ideas have a 
tendency to flow over into action. 

Infusoria. A class of free swim- 
ming unicellular animaleula, so 
named because found in infusions 
of decaying animal and vegetable 
matter. 


GLOSSARY OF TECHNICAL TERMS 


Inhibit. To block or frustrate. 

Inhibition, Retroactive. When 
another form of mental activity, 
or another piece of learning by 
heart, immediately follows the 
work of memorizing it tends to 
obliterate the memory trace. The 
effect of the second piece of work 
in undoing the results of the first 
is termed “retroactive inhibition.” 

Innervate, To supply with nervous 
stimulation. 

Intelligence Quotient. The ratio of 
one’s mental age to his actual or 
chronological age multiplied by 
100. Normal mentality would 
therefore be 100. An TI. Q. below 70 
probably means feeblemindedness. 

Interstitial. Located in the inter- 
stices or spaces of a network, as 
the interstitial connective tissue 
that lies between the tissue that 
performs the special function of 
one of the organs of the body. 

Intracapsular, Located inside the 
capsule. 

Iris. The colored part of the eye, a 
muscular mechanism that controls 
the size of the pupil. 

Iritis, Inflammation of the iris. 


J 


Joint Capsule. The membrane 
covering the ends of the two or 
more bones that meet at a joint, 
and which contains a lubricating 
fluid known as the synovial fluid. 


K 


Katatonia. A condition of spastic 
rigidity of the body by which 
peculiar attitudes are maintained 
for long periods. 


419 


Kinzsthesia. The peculiar form of 
awareness by which we are con- 
scious of our muscular movements. 

Kinetic. Pertaining to movement 
or energy. 

Korsakoff’s Complex, A mental 
disorder resulting from chronic 
alcoholism characterized partic- 
ularly by gross disturbance of 
memory. 


L 


Lenticular Nucleus. A large mass 
of gray matter in the brain, 
separated from the caudate nu- 
cleus by the internal capsule. It 
probably has something to do with 
the normal execution of move- 
ment and is found diseased in 
cases of pathological trembling as 
in paralysis agitans. 

Lesion. A general name for any 
injury, or locus of infection, or 
area of degeneration. 

Leucocytes. The white corpus- 
cles found in the blood. 

Ligaments. Strong bands of con- 
nective tissue strengthening the 
capsules around the joints of 
bones. 

Lumbar Region. The part of the 
spinal cord which gives rise to the 
nerves that supply the lower ex- 
tremities and which manifests an 
enlargement known as the lumbar 
enlargement. 

Lymph Vessels. Small canals 
which carry the waste material 
from the interstices of the tissues 
and empty it into the veins. 


M 


Malnutrition. A condition due to 
improper assimilation of food. 


420 


Manic-depressive. Pertaining to 
the state of manic-depressive in- 
sanity, that is, a psychosis char- 
acterized by alternating periods of 
excitement or depression. Indi- 
vidual attacks clear up completely 
but are always likely to recur. 

Matter, Gray. A term used to 
designate nervous tissue composed 
extensively of nerve cells. 

Matter, White. A term used to 
designate nerve tissue composed 
mainly of nerve fibres. 

Medulla Oblongata. Part of the 
hind-brain which passes below 
into the spinal cord. It contains 
centres for many important fune- 
tions, such as respiration, heart 
action, etc. 

Megalomania, ‘Suffering from de- 
lusions of grandeur, such as 
thinking one’s self a king, or 
Napoleon Bonaparte, or im- 
mensely wealthy, ete. 

Mendelism. The theory of heredity 
established by the Augustinian 
Abbot, Mendel, which associates 
particular characteristics in the 
offspring with specific determi- 
nants in the germ plasm, and en- 
ables one, from the characteristics 
of the parents, to calculate before- 
hand the ratio in which a char- 
acter will be present or lacking in 
the offspring. 

Meningitis. Inflammation of the 
coverings of the brain. 

Mental Age, The mental level 
measured in years and correspond- 
ing to the average mentality of 
children at the year designated, 
€.g.. seven years, ten years, ete. 


GLOSSARY OF TECHNICAL TERMS 


Mesonephros. The second form of 
secretory apparatus developed in 
the embryo. 

Metabolism. The chemical proc- 
esses involved in the building up 
and breaking down of tissue that 
constantly goes on in the living 
organism. 

Metacarpus, The five bones between 
the wrist and the fingers. 

Metanephros. The final form of 
secretory apparatus developed in 
man. 

Metazoa. Animals (in contrast to 
the protozoa) which are built up 
of more than one cell. 


Muscles of Accommodation, See 
Accommodation, muscles of. 
Muscle Spindles. See neuro- 


muscular end organs. 
Myelinization, The process. by 
which nerve fibres are covered 
with a sheath of myelin, a fatty 
substance which probably insu- 
lates the nerve pathways and 


so renders them capable of 
functioning. 
Myelitis. Inflammation of the 
spinal cord. 
N 


Negativism. <A trait which makes 
a patient take an attitude of 
opposition towards every sugges- 
tion or command that others 
make. See p. 219. 

Nephritic Tubules. A system of 
tubules functioning as a kidney. 

Neurasthenia. A word used to 
designate a condition of abnormal 
irritability and tendency to ex- 
haustion. Authorities differ as 
to whether the condition is due 
to a “functional disorder of the 


GLOSSARY OF TECHNICAL TERMS 


nervous system” or is to be 
regarded as purely psychogenic. 
To react to difficulties by a show 
of exhaustion or by exaggerating 
the signs of fatigue, is, however, 
sometimes at least an appeal for 
sympathy, a definite parataxis 
peculiar to certain characters. 

Neurochemistry. The chemistry of 
the nervous system. 

Neurofibrils, The microscopic fibres 
at the extremities of a nerve. 
Neurological, Pertaining to the 
nervous system or the science 

which treats thereof. 

Neuromuscular. Having muscular 
and nervous elements. 

Neuromuscular End Organs. Mi- 
croscopic structures in the muscle, 
most numerous near the tendons, 
vrhich may be stimulated either 
by the tension of the muscle or 
the stimulus itself that causes 
the muscle to contract. See p. 252. 

Neuron. The microscopic unit of 
the nervous system consisting of 
a nerve cell with its prolon- 
gations: (a) The dendrites or tree- 
like branches of the cell, and (b) 
the long axis cylinder which in 
the motor cells of the cortex, ex- 
tends from the brain to the spinal 
cord, 

Neuropathic, Having an abnormal 
constitution of the nervous 
system. 

Neurosis. A term used properly to 
designate physical disorders for 
which no anatomical basis can be 
found, but which could conceiv- 
ably be due to malfunction of the 
nervous system e.g., abnormal 
flushing or pallor of the skin, dis- 
ordered heart action, etc, It is 


421 


sometimes used in a broader sense 
so as to include even mental dis- 
orders, especially single symptoms 
that have no apparent basis in 
an anatomical injury, as in the 
term “war neuroses.” 

Neurotendinous End Organs. Mi- 
croscopic structures in the tendons 
that are probably stimulated by 
tension, giving rise, perhaps, to 
part of the sensory complex of 
which we are aware in muscular 
action. 

Nevus (or nevus). A reddish spot 
or elevation on the skin, usually 
congenital, due to dilation of small 
blood vessels; sometimes used also 
as synonymous with mole. 

Nucleus. <A group of nerve cells 
from which a nerve takes its 
origin, or which constitutes a 
ganglionic centre. 

Nucleus, Deiters’, A group of cells 
in the upper part of the medulla 
oblongata (g.v.) that receives 
fibres from the semicircular canals 
(our end organ of equilibrium) 
and transmits stimuli (by way of 
the posterjor longitudinal fascic- 
ulus) to the body muscles and 
the centres for eye and head move- 
ments. It, therefore, codrdinates 
eye, head, and body in the process 
of maintaining equilibrium. 

Nucleus, Lenticular. A large mass 
of gray matter in the brain 
separated from the caudate nu- 
cleus by the internal capsule. It 
probably has something to do with 
the normal execution of movement 
and is found diseased in cases of 
pathological trembling such as 
paralysis agitans, 


422 


Nucleus, Oculomotor, The group 
of nerve cells from which proceed 
the fibres of the third cranial 
nerve which supplies four of the 
six external muscles of the eye- 
ball. 

O 

(Edema. Swelling of a part due to 
inadequate circulation; dropsy. 

Ontogenetic. Pertaining to the 
development of the embryo or the 
individual. 

Operculum. Literally a lid. In 
brain anatomy, a part of the cor- 
tex, covering an indented area 
known as the Island of Reil. 


Optimum. The most favorable 
condition. 

Orbicularis Oculi. A muscle in 
the skin surrounding the eye 


slits, which closes them when act- 
ing as a unit. When the external 
portion only of the muscle acts, it 
produces the “ crow’s feet” at the 
corners of the eyes that give the 
twinkle to a smile. When the 
superior and interior portions act, 
they produce an expression of 
reflection. 
Organogenic. Due to physical ab- 
normalities in the organism, 
Osmosis. The process by which 
fluid passes through an intact 
membrane from a less concen- 
trated to a more concentrated 
solution. 
Osmotic Pressure. The pressure 
developed within a membranous 
capsule due to osmosis (q.v.). 
Otoliths. Chalky granules in the 
inner ear which have been demon- 
strated to have a function in 
maintaining equilibrium when the 
body is not moving. They are 


GLOSSARY OF TECHNICAL TERMS 


therefore said to function in static 
equilibrium. 

Otosclerosis, A disease of the ear 
causing a defect of hearing 
because free movement of bones 
of the middle ear is interfered 
with by sclerotic processes. 

Ovum. The egg, or female reproduc- 
tive cell. 


P 


Paramecium, A genus of animal- 
cula common in hay infusions, 
oblong, with many cilia and a 
mouth near the middle of the 
ventral surface. 

Paranoia. A form of insanity that 
has its roots in the intellectual 
life and leads. the patient to false ~ 
interpretations of the actions of 
others and to the weaving of 
schemes and speculations that 
have no foundation in reality. 

Parapraxia. A form of disorder of 
movement in which the patient 
is unable to put together properly 
the various elements of a volun- 
tary action though he may be 
able to perform correctly each 
part of the complex. 

Parataxis, An impulsive drive to 
react to difficulties in some par- 
ticular way (e.g., by depression, 
anxiety) that becomes abnormal 
by virtue of its intensity or pro- 
longation, or bizarre character 
and which may be the preliminary 
stage of a serious breakdown. 

Paresis. A syphilitic disease of the 
nervous system, progressive and 
incurable, characterized in typical 
cases by “ delusions of grandeur ” 
that make the patient think that 
he is a notable personality, very 
wealthy, etc., but capable of simu- 


GLOSSARY OF TECHNICAL TERMS 


lating any known mental disorder. 
Paretics usually have a peculiar 
facial expression and disturbance 
of speech. They eventually have 
transitory attacks of paralysis, 
and later suffer permanent con- 
tractures of their limbs and com- 
plete dementia. 

Parkinson’s Facies. The mask-like, 
stiff, expressionless face of one 
afflicted with Parkinson’s dis- 
ease (paralysis agitans). It is 
found also in those who have 
recovered from the acute stages 
of sleeping sickness (encephalitis 
lethargica). 

Pathological. Abnormal; differing 
from the normal because of an 
underlying diseased condition. 


Pathology. The science that studies 


the anatomical basis of disease; 
the underlying condition itself 
which lies at the basis of any 
abnormality. 

Periosteum. The membrane cover- 
ing a bone from which the bone 
was. generated and which is 


capable of generating new bone . 


after a fracture. 
Pertussis, Whooping cough. 
Phalanges, The bones of the fingers. 
Phobia. 


spaces (agoraphobia), the fear of 
closed spaces (claustrophobia), 
etc. 

Photochemical, Pertaining to a 
chemical reaction brought about 
by light. 

Phrenics, The nerves of respiration 
that control the diaphragm. 

Phylogenetic. Pertaining to the 
development of the race. Con- 
trasted with ontogenetic, q.v. 


An unreasonable fear or 
anxiety, such as the fear of open 


423 

Physiological Zero. See Zero, 
physiological. 

Pineal Gland. A structure located 
in the mid-brain above and 
between tha superior colliculi. It 
is probably a gland of internal 
secretion and may have an inhibi- 
tory effect in childhood on the 

_ development of the genital or- 
gans, for some cases have been 
noted of an associaton of pre- 
mature puberty with a tumor 
destroying the pineal gland. Fig. 2. 

Plethysmograph. An instrument 
used in studying increase and de- 
crease of blood volume in an organ 
or part of the body. See p. 120. 

Pneumograph. An instrument used 
for transmitting the movements 
of breathing to some kind of 
recording apparatus. See p. 121. 

Polyp. Literally an animal with 
many feet; a name applied to 
such organisms as the cuttlefish, 
hydra, and coelenterates. Used 
also to designate a tumor in the 
nose or any growths, attached by 
a stem, on a mucous membrane. 


Posterior Longitudinal Fascic- 
ulus. See Fasciculus, posterior 
longitudinal. 

Posterior Roots, The fibres passing 
into the spinal cord in the region 
of its posterior horns and coming 
from sensory ganglia located just 
outside the cord. All forms of 
body sensation pass through these 
roots. See Fig. 1, p. 55. 

Precordial. Pertaining to the region 
of the chest in front of the heart. 

Przcox, A term frequently used to 
designate the “shut-in reaction 
type” of character that shrinks 


424 


into itself and will have nothing 
to do with the outside world after 
being confronted with some of the 
difficulties of life. This type of 
reaction is sometimes the first 
stage of a dementia. See Dementia 
preecox. 

Probable Error.See Error, probable. 


Prognosis. The probable outcome 
of a disorder. 
Pronephros. The first form of 


secretory apparatus developed in 
the human embryo. 

Prophylaxis, The methods of pre- 
venting disease. 

Protein. A chemical constituent of 
the body of complex character 
containing. nitrogen. 

Protozoa, Unicellular animals. 

Psychasthenia. A term rejected by 
Freud as referring to a specific 
condition, but used by Janet to 
designate the condition of patients 
whose will is apparently weak 
and who are, therefore, unable to 
make a decision, and are also 
afflicted with abnormal fears and 
anxieties. 


Psychiatrist. One who treats the 
disorders of the mind. 
Psychogenic. Produced by the 


mind and its mechanisms, but not 
due to an organic condition or 
anatomical injury. 
Psychoneurosis, A generic name 
for a number of relatively minor 
forms of mental disorder, without 
anatomical basis, which usually 
do not require commitment of 
the patient to an institution but 
more or less incapacitate him for 
his work. See Hysteria, Neuras- 
thenia, Psychasthenia. 
Psychopathic. Manifesting ab- 


GLOSSARY OF TECHNICAL TERMS 


normal mental traits but neither 
feebleminded nor insane. 

Psychosis, The technical generic 
name for insanity. 

Psychotaxis. A normal impulsive 
drive to react to a mental diffi- 
culty in a definite way, e.g., to be 
depressed, to worry, to shrink | 
back, to shirk, ete. See p. 182 ff. 

Pulmonary. Pertaining to the lungs. 

Pyramidalis Nasi. A facial muscle 
which throws the skin over the 
bridge of the nose in heavy folds, 
indicative of angry aggression. 

Pyramidal Tract. A group of nerve 
fibres proceeding from cells in the 
motor area of the cortex of the 
brain to the motor cells in the 
anterior horn of the spinal cord. 
Tt is the main pathway for volun- 
tary motor impulses to the muscles 
of the body. 


Q 


Quadriceps Femoris. A group of 
four muscles in the thigh with a 
common tendon inserted into the 
tibia. The quadriceps extends the 


lower leg, that is, holds it 
straight. 
R 
Radicles. Small roots. 
Radius. The outer of the two bones 


of the forearm, that is, the bone 
on the thumb side. 

Rami Communicantes. Small 
bundles of nerve fibres that con- 
nect the spinal cord with the 
ganglia of the sympathetic 
nervous system. 

Reflex. The mechanical response of 
a muscle or gland to a definite 
sensory stimulus. See p, 55 ff. 


GLOSSARY .OF TECHNICAL TERMS 


Reflex Arc. The nervous path ofa 
reflex action from the sensory area 
of stimulation to the centre and 
out again to the muscle or gland. 

Resection. An operation by which 
a part of an organ is cut out, 
e.g., the ends. of the bones of a 
joint. 

Resonance, Emotional. The vari- 
ous bodily symptoms of emotional 
disturbances, e¢.g., flushing or 
pallor of the face, hair standing 
on end, palpitation of the heart, 
gooseflesh, crying, etc. 

Retina. The expansion of the optic 
nerve over the posterior and in- 
terior surface of the eyeball, 
which takes up visual stimuli and 
transmits them to the brain. 

‘Retroactive Inhibition. See Inhibi- 
tion, retroactive. 

Rolandic Area, The area around 
the fissure of Rolando in the 
brain, that is, the precentral and 
the postcentral gyrus. Though 
the precentral gyrus is now 
known to be exclusively motor in 
man, and the postcentral, sensory, 
the term is still used in the old 
sense and refers to the motor area, 
that is, the precentral gyrus. 

Roots, Anterior. See Anterior roots. 


Roots, Posterior. See Posterior 
roots. 
S 
Schizophrenia. A synonym for de- 


mentia precox (q. v.) which ex- 
presses the concept of that 
disorder which regards it as a 
splitting of the mind, so that emo- 
tional expression no longer corre- 
sponds to intellectual content. 


28 


425 


Sciatic Nerve. A large nerve which 
proceeds down the back of the 
thigh, supplying the muscles in 
the back of the thigh, the leg, and 
the foot (through its ultimate 
branches) and returns sensations 
from a large area of the leg and 
the foot. 

Sclerotic. Hardened. 

Semicircular Canals. Three tiny 
handle-shaped tubes in each inner 
ear arranged in the three direc- 
tions of the planes of space. 
Movements of the body stimulate 
nerve fibres in the canals, giving 
rise to a sense of disturbance of 
equilibrium, or at least to com- 
pensatory movements. 

Sensory-motor. Pertaining to sen- 
sation and movement. 

Somatic. Pertaining to, or arising 
from the body. 

Spermatozoon., The male element 
in the process of fertilization. 

Spindles, Muscle. See Neuromuscu- 
lar end organs. 

Splanchnic Nerves. A group of 
nerve fibres of the sympathetic 
system that supply the viscera. 

Statocysts. Cells in the root caps 
of plants containing starch grains 
which function in turning the 
root downwards. See p. 82. 

Strabismus. Crossing of the eyes 
due to muscular weakness. 

Striated. A term used to designate 
the transverse markings (stri@) 
seen on the contractile fibres of 
the muscle cells under a high 
power microscope. Such muscles 
are in general subject to voluntary 
control and are _ distinguished 
from smooth muscles that lack 


426 


these striec. Smooth muscles are 


found in the internal organs of 
the body such as the intestines, 
the blood vessels, the iris, ete. 
Strychnine. A drug obtained from 
the plant Nux vomica, which in 
poisonous doses so increases the 
reflex irritability of the spinal 
cord that any sensory stimulus 
leads to general convulsion of all 
the muscles of the body. 
Subcortical. Situated below the 
cortex. See Ganglia, subcortical. 
Subcutaneous. Beneath the skin. 
Substrate. That which underlies 
phenomena as that which acts in 
action; substance in the philo 
sophical sense. 
Surface Tension. The pull at the 
surface of a fluid tending to bring 


it to a spherical mass, as is: 


actually accomplished to a con- 
siderable extent in a drop of fall- 
ing water. In virtue of surface 
tension fluids are, as it were, sur- 
rounded by an elastic membrane. 

Sympathetic Ganglion. See Gan- 
glion, sympathetic. 

Synapsis. The junction between twe 
neurons in the nervous system. 
Syndrome. A characteristic group 

of symptoms. 

Syringomyelia. A disease of the 
spinal cord in which tubular cavi- 
ties are found in its interior. 

Systole. The period of the heart 
beat during which the heart is 
contracted. Opposed to “ dias- 
tole ” the period of relaxation. 

Systolic. Pertaining to systole. 

Systolic Blood Pressure. The 
blood pressure during systole. 


GLOSSARY OF TECHNICAL TERMS 


T 


Tabes Dorsalis. A disease of the 
nervous system, progressive and 
incurable, that comes on as the 
result of a syphilitic infection, 
whose typical anatomical basis is 
a degeneration of the posterior 
sensory columns of the spinal 
cord, and often of their associated 
ganglia; and which manifests 
itself by a peculiar disturbance of 
gait, loss of the patellar reflexes, 
a pupil that responds to accommo- 
dation but not to light, crises of 
pain and vomiting, and later per- 
haps by total blindness, etc. 

Teleological. Manifesting design or 
purpose, or based on the evidences 
of design. 

Temporal Bone. <A bone of the 
skull with various processes with- 
in which is located the auditory 
apparatus. 

Thalamus. One of a pair of large 
ganglionic centres in the brain 
lying on either side of its third or 
median ventricle. It is a relay 
station for touch and pain fibres 
on the way to the cortex, and 
among its other functions it is 
probably a reflex centre for emo- 
tional expression, 

Thoracic Region. The part of the 
spinal cord which gives rise to the 
nerves that supply the trunk of 
the body. 

Threshold. The minimum stimulus 
that a sense organ can perceive. 
Tibia. The internal and heavier of 
the two bones of the lower leg. 
Tibialis Anticus, A muscle in the 
lower leg that elevates the inner 

border of the foot. 


GLOSSARY OF TECHNICAL TERMS 


Tic, A spasmodic jerking of a single 
muscle or group of muscles. 

Tonus, A condition of tension that 
keeps a muscle more or less 
moderately stretched and ready 
for action. 

Toxic-Exhaustive. Due to the ab- 
sorption of poisons or the effects 
of exhaustion. 

Toxin, Strictly, a poison of bac- 
terial origin; sometimes used 
synonymously with poison in 
general. 

Transversalis Nasi, The muscle 
of lasciviousness, which produces 
folds in the skin of the nose as 
if in sniffing. 

Trauma, An injury due to external 
violence, The term psychic trauma 
is used for a severe emotional 
shock. 

Trigeminal Nerve, The fifth 
cranial nerve, which supplies the 
muscles of mastication and trans- 
mits sensory stimuli from the skin 
of the face, the teeth, the mucous 
membranes of the nose, etc. 

Tubercles, The characteristic small 
nodules produced in the organs of 
the body by the bacillus of 
tuberculosis. 

Twilight State. A clouding of 
consciousness, such as occurs for 
a short period after an epileptic 
seizure, and is also found in hys- 
terical conditions. 


U 


Ulna. The inner of the two bones 
of the forearm, 1.e., the one on the 
side of the little finger. 


427 


Vv 


Vagus Nerve. ‘The tenth cranial 
nerve transmitting sensation from 
many internal organs, e.g., the 
lining of all the cavities of the 
respiratory system; it also sup- 
plies the muscles of the larynx 
and the intestines with motor 
fibres and slows the heart. 

Valvular Disease. Heart disease 
involving the valves. 

Vascular, Pertaining to the blood 
vessels, 

Vein, Femoral. A large vein in the 
thigh that returns blood from the 
whole leg, emptying it into the 
iliac vein, which in turn pours its 
blood into the inferior vena cava. 

Vena Cava, Lither of two large 
veins (superior and _ inferior) 
that empty blood directly into 
the heart. 

Vesicle, A small blister or bladder 
containing fluid. 

Vestibular Nerve. That portion 
of the eighth cranial nerve that 
receives impressions from _ the 
vestibular portion of the inner 
ear, t.e., the sensory organ of 
equilibrium. 

Viscera, Organs contained in the 
body cavities. 


WwW 


Wallerian Degeneration. Degenera- 
tion of the fibres (a) of the 
anterior roots of the spinal cord 
(if cut) from the point of section 
outwards; (6) of the posterior 
segments from the point of section 
inward, when the section is made 
between the ganglion and the 


428 GLOSSARY OF TECHNICAL TERMS 


cord; and from the point of 
section outwards when the cut is 
made beyond the ganglion. These 
facts demonstrate that the cells of 
the motor fibres are located in the 
spinal cord and those of the sen- 
sory fibres in the ganglion. 
Widal Test. A test for typhoid 
fever, made by allowing a drop of 
blood serum from a suspected case 
of typhoid to co-mingle with a 
drop of a culture of living typhoid 


bacilli. If the patient has typhoid 
the bacilli loose their motility and 
are clumped together in groups. 


Z 


Zero, Physiological. A temperature 
which the organism experiences as 
neither hot nor cold. 

Zygomaticus Major. A facial mus- 
ele, under good voluntary con- 
trol, which draws the corners of 
the lips backward as in a smile. 


SUBJECT INDEX 


Active movement, perception of, pos- 
sible without sensations from 
the moving organ, 364 
Adjustments, abnormal emotional, 
186 
mental, see Readjustment, Psy- 
chotaxis, Parataxis 
Adler, Alfred, 279 ff. 
concept of neurotic constitution, 
279 
critical estimate of, 282 
organ-inferiority, 177 
Adrenalin and emotional changes, 126 
Affective mental states, 101 
summary of theory of, 132 
Anesthesia, hysterical, 227 
Analytic cure, mechanism of, 23 
Animal psychology gave birth to 
Behaviorism, 7 
Animals, consciousness of, 80 
Antification, 281 
Anxiety, as impulse, 198 
etiology of, 207 
may limit responsibility, 382 
neurosis, 203 
paratxis of, 198 ff. 
stages of, 198 
treatment of, 209 
Aphonia, functional, treatment of, 
296 
Apraxia, 347 
Argyll-Robertson pupil, 60 
Aristotle, concept of psychology, 4 
Association as a mental function un- 
conscious, 18 
Attention, concept of, 46 
voluntary and involuntary, 313 
Attributes of sensation and feeling, 
107 
of will as mental element, 319 


Autistic thinking, 36 
Automatic writing, 41 


Bechterew, experiments on emotional 
expression, 118 
Behavior, pathological, due to ab- 
normalities of affective life, 
379 
of impulses and desires, 382 ff. 
of intellectual life, 375 
conditions, underlying, 368 ff. 
due to false interpretations, 377 
due to heredity, 370 
due to impairment of will, 372 
due to lack of training, 369 
due to organic cerebral defect, 384 
due to premature sex ripening, 383 
Behaviorism, origin of, 7 
definition of, 8 
criticism of, 8 
Bewusstseinslagen, 338 
* Blas,” van Helmont’s concept of, 
403 
Blood sugar, increase of, in strong 
emotions, 127 ff. 


Cardiovascular and respiratory emo- 
tional resonance, problem of 
specific character, 122 

changes in emotion, 120 

Career, choice of, and organ-in- 

feriority, 178 
factors that determine, 176 

Case history, method of taking, 
300 ff. 

Catharsis, Freudian view of, 23 

mechanism of, 23 
reason for varying values of, 262 
value of, according to Jung, 271 


429 


430 


Cathartic method of Breuer and 
Freud, 253 ff. 
Frank’s technique for, 39 ff. 
inadequacy of, 261 
Censor in dreams, Freud’s concept, 
34. 
Character, concept of, 51 
transformation of, due to para- 
lytic stroke, 381 
to encephalitis lethargica, 385 
Chemical reactions and tropisms, 94 
theory of free will, Ostwald’s, 
399 ff. 
Chemotropism, 89 
Childhood, conflict in, 162 
definition of period of, 165 
reaction type of incapacitation in, 
224 
Coagulation of blood hastened by 
emotion, 129 
Collective psyche, 265 ff. 
Compensation, concept of, 235 
definition of, 185 
distinction from sublimation, 244 
parataxis of, 237 
sympathy as, 238 
Complex, concept of, 22 
definition of, 23 
Electra, 263 
(idipus, 263 ff. 
totemism and C&dipus, 264 
Conative mental reactions, 49 
Concept, see Meaning 
Conceptual control of voluntary 
movement, 331 
Angell’s criticism of the theory of, 
334 
summary of the theory, 333 
further evidence of the theory, 340 
Conditioned reflex, 68 
heredity of, 63 
latent times of, 69 
consciousness and, 70 ff, 


SUBJECT INDEX 


Conduct, ideals of, 162 
pathological, see Behavior, patho- 
logical 
Cones, receptors of light reflex, 59 
Conflict, after puberty, 168 
opposing forces in, 171 
in childhood, 162 
in infancy, 160 
characteristic distinction between, 
in childhood and infancy, 166 
moral, of children, 167 
results of victory and defeat in, 
180 
with reality, 161, 166 
Consciousness, activity of a vital 
principle, 16 
cannot be identified with move- 
ment, 16 
concept of, 13 
conditioned reflex and, 70 ff. 
connected with organisms possess- 
ing a nervous system, 16 
continuity of, 14 
denial of, by James and extreme 
school of Behaviorists, 8 
metaphysically, accident and not a 
aubstance, 15 
necessity of non-material substrate 
for, 410 
no generic, apart from specific 
form of its manifestation, 14 
not a chemical reaction, but the 
activity of a vital principle, 
16 
of animals, 80 ff. 
ultimate nature of, 15 
Consensual light reflex, 60 
Conservation of energy and free will, 
401 
Constitution, types of, Meyer’s con- 
cept of, in mental disorders, 
284 ff. 
Constitutional psychopath, typical 
case history, 376 


SUBJECT INDEX 


Cortical refiex, 63 ff. 


reaction-time experiments and, 
63 ff. 
Curiosity, sensory, association of 


with other interests, 168, 170 
in childhood, 162 
in infancy, 160 
Cynic, concept of, 181 


Deafness, functional treatment of, 
295 
Defense reactions, 185, 211 ff. 
convulsive seizures 229 
etiology of, 231 
excitement, 217 
forgetting, 213 
general disability, 226 
ideas of persecution, 218 
incapacitation, 223 
in everyday life, 212 
negativism, 219 
as psychotaxes, 230 
shut-in type of reaction, 220 
special disablement, 227 
treatment of, 232 ff. 
typical case history, 221 
Delusions, examples of, 378 
Dementia precox, 187, 201, 221, 233, 
378 
Depression, etiology of, 195 
as an impulse, 189 
parataxis of, examples, 191 
stages of, 190 
treatment of, 192, 193, 196 
Depth reaction of Paramecium, 86 
Desire, concept of, 150 
definition of, 49, 152 
Desires, classification of, 152 
conscious and unconscious, 153 
management of, 157 ff. 
plan of life in codrdination of, 154 
sensory and intellectual, 153 
Dilatation of pupil, reflex path for, 
60 
Ding an sich, 409 


431 


Disease entities in  psychistry, 
Meyer’s theory of, 286 
Dispositions, mental, 45 
Dream analysis, technique of, 37 
Freud’s theory of, 30 
Jung’s theory of, 273 
personalities, 32 
Dreams and the censor of mental life, 
34 
and experiences of childhood, 31 
and experiences of preceding day, 
30 
and hypnotic analogies, 35 
and sexuality, 31 
and theory of perception, 36 
and wish-fulfilments, 32 
as compensatory mechanisms, 236 
Dual classification of mental proc- 
esses, origin of, 42 


Keholalia, 233 
explanation of, on 
theory, 328 
Echopraxia, explanation of, on ideo- 
motor theory, 328 
Effort, feeling of, 362, 367 
Eleetra complex, 263 
Emotion, abnormalities of, 379 ff. 
and acceleration of coagulation of 
blood, 129 
and bodily resonance, 111 
and cardiovascular changes, 120 ff. 
concept of, 49 
control of, 316 
experiments of Cannon, 126 ff, 
and facial expression, 116 
and improved muscular contrac- 
tion, 128 
increase of blood sugar in, 127 
pathological deficit of, 379 
physiological effects of, 126 ff. 
and respiratory changes, 121 
and restoration of fatigued muscle, 
129 


ideomotor 


432 


Emotion and secretion of adrenalin, 
126 f. 
theory of Herbartians, 102 f. 
of James, 111 ff. 
of Jungmann, 109 ff. 
of Lehmann, 107 ff. 
of Stoics, 101 
of Stumpf, 108 
of Wundt, 103 ff, 
and visceral changes, 124 ff. 
Emotional expression elaborated in 
brain, 117 
expression and thalamic lesion, 
118. 
glycosuria, 127 
resonance, lack of, and pathologi- 
cal behavior, 380 
Encephalitis lethargica and trans- 
formation of character, 385 
Energy, mechanical theory of, not 
applicable to mental life of 
man, 399 ff. 
Entelechy, 408 
Equation, personal, 73 
Equilibrium, mechanism of, 83 
Examination, mental, schema for, 
305 ff. 
Excitement as a defense reaction, 217 
Expression, muscles of, 117 


Facial expression and emotions, 116; 
Fascicle of Weissmann, 353 
Fatigue, effects of, decreased by emo- 
tion, 129 
Fechner, Gustav Theodor, concept of 
soul, 6 
definition of psychology, 6 
Feeling as an attribute of sensation, 
107 
concept of, 48 
and emotion, 102 
distinct from sensation, 108 
of innervation, 362, 367 


SUBJECT INDEX 


Feeling, theory of Herbartians, 102 f. 
of Kant, 107 
of Lehmann, 107 ff. 
of Stumpf, 103 
of Wundt, 103 ff. 
Feelings, sensory, 103 
Fiat, voluntary, 365 
Flexibilities cerea, 233 
Forced laughing and erying, 119 
movements and chemotropism, 90 
and galvanotropism, 92 ff, 
and geotropism, 86 
and heliotropism, 87, 93 
and thermotropism, 91 
Forgetting, as a defense reaction, 213 
Freud’s theory of, 213 
Forma substantialis, 408 
Frank’s method of partial hypnosis, 
39 
Free association, method of, in inves- 
tigating the unconscious, 38, 
256 
I'reedom, concept of, 392 
does not exclude all necessity in 
voluntary choice, 392 
evidence for, 398 
of the will, 392 . 
see Responsibility 
Free will, chemical theory of, 399 ff, 
and conservation of energy, 400 
and heredity, 394 
Freud, 253 ff. 
concept of catharsis, 23, 262 
of censor, 34 
of impulse, 241 
of libido, 262 
of resistance, 257 
of sublimation, 241 
of transfer, 258 
criticism of, 259 
theory of dreams, exposition and 
criticism of, 30 ff. 
theory of forgetting, 213 
therapeutic procedure, 256 





SUBJECT INDEX 


Freud’s criticism of Jung’s therapy, 
273 

Functional disorders, therapy of, 294 

Functions, mental, concept of, 44 


Galvanopsychic reaction, 39 
Galvanotropism, 92 
Genius and organ-inferiority, 281 
Geotropism, 81, 83 

in plants, mechanism of, 82 
Glycosuria, emotional, 127 
Growth, mechanical factors in, 406 ff. 
Guiding fiction, 281 


Habit, concept of, 51 
Habits, unconscious, 19 
Heliotropism, 86 
not necessarily identical in ani- 
mals and plants, 88 
Hereditary abilities and choice of a 
career, 177 
Heredity and free will, 394 
Hypnagogic hallucinations, 36 
Hypnosis in psychotherapy, 298 
Hypnotic analogies and theory of 
dreams, 35 
Hysteria, origin of, in childhood, ac- 
cording to Freud, 255 
origin of anesthesia in, 227 
* shell-shock ” and, 188 
see also Defense reactions 


Ideals of conduct, 162 
Ideas, motor expression of, 329 
Ideomotor action, 321 ff. 
ideas, evidence for, 325 ff. 
Image, mental, 48 
verbal, 339 
visual and meaning, 339 
see also Kinesthetic 
Imageless concepts, 335 
experimental evidence for, 336 
thoughts: see Imageless concepts; 
Meaning; Thought 


433 


Imagery, verbal, and voluntary move- 
ment, 331 
Immortality, 411 
Impulse, 137 ff. 
anxiety as, 198 
compensation as, 235, 236 
concept of, 139 
definition of, 49, 140 
depression as, 189 
distinct from voluntary action, 
165-6 
moral inhibitions, 165 
reflex action, 141 
Freud’s concept of, 241 ff. 
Jung’s concept of, 242 
sublimation as, 245 
and voluntary action, 317 
Impulses, classification of, 142 
motor, 143 
motor and play, 145 
not reducible to unit form, 243 
recapitulation theory of develop- 
ment of, 146, 276 
sensory, 147 
neural mechanism of, 148 
spontaneity of, 148 
Incapacitation, voluntary and invol- 
untary, 223 
reaction of, in childhood, 224 
Individual, Jung’s concept of, 269 
Infancy, conflict in, 160 
Inferiority, feeling of, 178, 246 
Inheritance of motor codrdination, 
144 
Inhibitory reflexes, 58 
Innervation, feeling of, 362 
Insanity, moral, typical case history, 
379 
Instinct, 137 ff. 
and chains of reflex actions, 56, 
58, 137 
concept of, 49, 137 
and heliotropism, 87 


434 


Instinctive reactions, 137 ff. 
Intellectual basis of emotion, 109 ff. 


James-Lange theory of emotion, 
111 ff. 
Joint sensations, 357 
Judgment, not association, 46 
Jung, 266 ff. 
concept of collective psyche, 268 
dream, 273 
impulse, 242 
libido, 262, 274 
regression, 269 
sublimation, 243 
symbolic thought, 36 
transfer, 272 
unconscious, 268 
criticism of, 274 
method of controlled associations, 
38 
therapeutic procedure, 270 ff. 
Freud’s criticism of, 273 


Kant and triple classification of men- 
tal processes, 43 
Kant’s concept of sensory and intel- 
lectual character, 49 
Kinesthesis, anatomical basis of, 
352, 356 
and joint sensations, 357 
and sense of tension, 360 
and skin pressure, 359: 
and skin sensations, 359 
and voluntary movement, 341 
Kinesthetic image, essential element 
in will according to Cornell 
school, 312 
necessity of, in voluntary move- 
ment according to James 
321 ff. 
sensations, summary of those in- 
volved in voluntary move- 
ment, 367 
“Kinetic melody,” 348 


SUBJECT INDEX 


Kinetic units, hereditary and ac- 
quired, 343 ff. 
and motor impulses, 143 ff. 
pathology of, 347 
and voluntary movement, 343 
Knee-jerk, 56 
Lange-James emotion, 
111 ff. 
Lehmann’s theory of feeling, 107 
Libido, Freud’s concept of, 258, 262 
Jung’s concept of, 262, 274 
Light reflex of pupil, latent time of, 
61 
neurological mechanism of, 59 
Localization, cerebral, 64 
Logical fallacy of Loeb, 94 ff. 


theory of 


Machine, Driesch’s definition of, 407 
Mass psyche, Freud’s concept of, 265 
Jung’s concept of, 10, 275 ff. 
Meaning, can form one term of an 
association, 339 
-Concept-Thought, q. v. 
denied by sensationalists, but pre- 
sent in their introspective re- 
ports, 336 
flow of, in reading, 336 
and kinesthetic image, 339 
a non-sensory psychological ex- 
perience, sui generis, 339 
not imagery, basis of understand- 
ing, 338 
not imagery, determines the char- 
acter of the act in voluntary 
movement, 339 ff. 
of proposition, 337 
temporal sequence of, and imagery 
in understanding words, 339 
and verbal images, 339 
Memory, concept of, 47 
as a mental function, unconscious, 
18 
sensory and intellectual, 47 


SUBJECT INDEX 


Mental activity, fundamental forms 
of, 43 
adjustment and act of will, 317 
disorders, origin of, extreme posi- 
tion of White, 259 
see also Parataxes 
treatment of, 298 
see also under Psychotherapy and 
Therapy 
dispositions, 45 
classification of, 49 
examination, method of, 300 
schema for, 305 ff. 
functions, classification of, 45 
concept of, 44 
unconsciousness of, 18 
processes, classification of, 42 ff. 
schema of classification, 50 
products, 44 
classification of, 47 
Meyer, Adolf, 284 ff. 
abnormal reaction types, 289 
classification of types of constitu- 
tion, 285 
disease entities in psychiatry, 286 
therapy of mental disorders, 291 
Moral concepts, development of, 
163 ff, 
inhibitory power of, distinct 
from impulse and voluntary 
action, 165 
conflicts of children, 162 
insanity, typical case history, 379 
Motives of action, unconsciousness 
of, 21 
Motor coérdinations, inheritance of, 
143 
Movement, active and passive, per- 
ception of, 361 
active, perception of, possible 
without sensations from mov- 
ing organ, 364 
thought of, causes vascular re- 
flexes, 366 


435 


Movement, voluntary, and kines- 
thetic image, 322 ff. 
voluntary and pain, 395 
see also Voluntary movement 
Movements, involuntary, of expres 
gion, 328 
Muscle spindles, 352 
sensory function of, 353 ff. 
Muscles of expression, 117 
Muscular contraction improved in 
emotion, 128 
reactions, 74 
sensations, anatomical basis of, 
352 


Narcissism, 263 
Natural science, concept of, and psy- 
chology, 10 
Negativism as defense reaction, 219 
Neuroses, origin of in childhood, 261 
war, 203 ff. 
Neurosis, anxiety, 22, 203 
Neuromuscular coérdination, 343 
end organs, 352 
Neurotendinous end organs, 352 
Neurotic constitution, Adler’s con- 
cept of, 279 


Objective methods in psychology, 7 

(Edipus complex, 263 

Ontogeny and phylogeny, principle 
of, 276 

and recapitulation of phylogeny, 

146 

Organ-inferiority, 177, 279 ff. 

Original attentiveness, 147 

Over-compensation, 178, 280 


Pain and voluntary action, 395 
Paralysis, functional, treatment of, 
296 
Paraphrenia, 187 
Parataxes, 182 ff. 
and psychoneuroses, 187 


436 


Parataxis, derivation of term, 187 
of anxiety, examples, 199: 
etiology of, 207 
stages of, 198 
treatment of, 209 
of compensation, concept of, 237 
examples, 239 
treatment of, 240 
of defense, see Defense reactions 
of depression, 189 ff. 
etiology of, 195 
examples, 191 ff. 
hereditary factor in, 196 
stages of, 190 
treatment of, 196 
of general disability, 226 
of special disablement, 227 
of sublimation, 246 
treatment of, 247 
Parva naturalia of Aristotle, 4 
Passive movement, sensations in- 
volved in, 367 

Perception, definition of, 46 

Person, see Personality 

Personal equation, 73 

Personality, empirical, 28 
metaphysical, 28 
multiple, 28-9 

Phantasmata, 48 
see also Image 

Phylogeny and its recapitulation in 

ontogeny, 146 
Physiological effects of the emotions, 
126 ff, 

Plan of life, Adler’s concept of, .281 
in codrdination of desires, 154 
examples of defects of, 154 ff. 
necessary for normal volitional ac- 

tivity, 376 

Play and motor impulses, 145 

Plethysmograph, 120 

Pneumograph, 121 

Products, mental, 44 


SUBJECT INDEX 


Psyche, collective, Jung’s concept of, 
268 
mass, Freud’s concept, 265 
see Soul 
Psychic reflexes, origin of term, 66 
trauma, 271 
Psychoanalysis, limitations of, 260 
origin of, 253 
value of, 261 
Psychology, concept of, 3 ff. 
definition of, 3 ff. 
by Aristotle, 4 
author, 9 
Behaviorists, 8 
Brentano, 6 
Calkins, 9 
Fechner, 6 
Watson, 7 
Wolff, 5 
Wundt, 6 
divided by Wolff into rational and 
empirical, 5 
empirical, real origins of in physi- 
ology, 5 
historical outline of its develop- 
ment, 3 ff. 
objective methods in, 7 
origin of name, 3 
rational, 5 
reasons for lack of unity in con- 
cept of, 3 
relation of, to other sciences, 10 
Psychoneuroses and parataxes, 187 
Psychophysics, 5-6 
Psychoses, parataxes are elements in, 
188 
Psychosis as regression, 278 
Psychotaxis, application of term, 183 
classification of, 184 
concept of, 182 
consciousness and, 183 
defense reaction as, 230 
origin of name, 182 


SUBJECT INDEX 


Psychotherapy of functional physical 
disorders, 294 ff. 
of mental disorders, 298 ff. 
necessity of synthesis as well as 
analysis in, according to Jung, 
272 
technique of, 294 ff. 
see also Therapy 
Pupil, light reflex of, latent time 
of, 61 
Pupillary reflexes, paths of, 59 ff. 
neurological mechanism of, 58 


Rational readjustment, 186 
Reaction time, 73 ff. 
analysis of, 74 
to cessation of stimulus, 77 
and cortical reflex, 75 
experiments and voluntary choice 
314 
to imagery and meaning, 339 
muscular and sensorial, 74 
to pain, 395 
and voluntary movement, 333 
Reaction types, abnormal, see Para- 
taxes 
Meyer’s classification of, 289 ff. 
Readjustment, rational, 186 
Reasoning not association, 46 
Recapitulation theory of develop- 
ment of impulses, 146 
Reflex action, 55 ff. 
analysis of, 57 
concept of, 55 
conditioned, 68 
see also Conditioned reflex 
examples of, 56 
forms of, 58 
origin of, 62 
Reflexes, control of, 61 
cortical, 63 
heredity of acquired, 63 
psychic, 66 
vascular, caused by thought of a 
movement, 366 


437 


Reform movements and parataxic 
sublimations, 247 
Regression, Freud’s concept of, 255 
Jung’s concept of, 269, 276 
and the psychosis, 278 
Representative mental processes and 
the emotions, 109 
Resistance, Freudian concept of, 257 
Respiratory changes and emotions, 
121 
Responsibility, basis of freedom, 398 
and anxiety, 382 
and the unconscious, 27 


Science, concept of, 10 
Scrupulosity, 202 
Self-ideal, concept of, 173 
factors that determine, 176 
significance of, 175 
Sensation, attributes of, 108 
feeling and, 107 
Sensations involved in voluntary 
movement, summary of, 367 
kinesthetic, 356 
necessity of, in voluntary move- 
ment, 349 ff. 
pain, 356 
Sensitization in the war neuroses, 
205 
Sensorial reactions, 74 
Sense of innervation, 362, 367 
of tension, 360 
Sensory curiosity, association of, 
with other interests, 168, 170 
in childhood, 162 
in infancy, 160 
impulses, neural mechanism of, 
148 
spontaneity of, 148 
Sexual nature of all impulses 
cording to Freud, 241 
“ Shell-shock,” 238 
see War neuroses 


ac- 


438 


Shut-in reaction type, 220 
therapy of, 223 
Skin pressure sense, 359 
sensations and kinesthesis, 359 
Sleeping sickness see Encephalitis 
lethargica 
Soul, action theory of Wundt, 409 ff. 
concept of, 402 
Descartes’ concept of, 402 
biological argument of Driesch, 
405 fff. 
Fechner’s concept of, 6 
immortality of, 411 
location of, 402 
not an object of perception, 18 
origin of the concept of, 404 
philosophical argument for, 409 
Stereotropism, 91 
Stimulus, cessation of and reaction 
time, 76 
energy of in reaction time, 76 
Stumpf, theory of feeling, 103 
Subconscious, concept of, 19 
see also Unconscious 
Sublimation, 186, 241 ff. 
concept of, 244 
Freud’s concept of, 241 
as an impulse, 245 
Jung’s concept of, 243 
meaning of term, 241 
normal, 247 
parataxic, 246 
treatment of, 247 
Suspicions as defense reactions, 218 
Suggested emotions and the Lange- 
James theory, 122 
Symbolic thought, 277 
Sympathy as compensation, 238 
pathological appeals for, 238 
Symptomatic acts, 257 
Syringomyelia, 350 


Temperament, concept of, 51 
Tension, sense of, 360 


SUBJECT. INDEX 


Tern, noddy and sooty, feeding in- 
stinct of, 138 
Tests, volitional, 390 
Thalamic lesions and emotional ex- 
pression, 118 
Therapy, Breuer and Freud’s cath- 
artic method of, 253 
Freud’s technique, 256 
Jung’s, 270 ff. 
Meyer’s, 291 
of parataxic anxiety, 209 
compensation, 240 
defense reactions, 232 ff. 
depression, 192, 193, 196 
functional disorders, 294 
shut-in type of reaction, 223 
sublimations, 247 
case history, 246 
see also Psychotherapy 
Thermotropism, 90 
Thought, as cause of voluntary 
movement, 332 
existence of, denied by Angell, 335 
logical and symbolic, 35-36, 277 
as psychic reflex, 65 ff. 
Titchener, concept of attention, 46 
Totemism and Cidipus complex, 264 
Toxins and psychogenic factors in 
mental disorders, 288 
Transfer, 185 
of blame, as defense reaction, 217 
as compensation, 238 
Freudian concept of, 258, 263 
Jung’s concept of, 272 
Trauma, psychic, 271 
Treatment, see Psychotherapy and 
Therapy 
Tremors, functional, treatment of, 
295 
Triple classification of mental proe- 
esses, origin of, 43 
Tropisms, 79 ff, 
and chemical reactions, 94 
general concept of, 79 


SUBJECT INDEX 


Tropisms in human behavior, 96 
typical example of, 81 


Unconscious, 17 ff. 
conscious processes, evidence for, 
25 
Freud’s concept of, 268 
von Hartmann’s concept of, 17 
Janet’s concept of, 17 
Jung’s concept of, 268 
mental states as such, 20 ff. 
methods of investigating, 37 ff. 
responsibility and, 27 
sphere of 18 ff. 
Unconsciousness of relation of ideas 
to conduct, 21 
of ideas and memories to mental 
life, 25 


Verbal images and meaning, 339 
and voluntary movement, 331 
Visceral changes in emotions, 124 ff. 
sensations, neural paths of, 124 

Volitional tests, 390 
training, 387 
Voluntary action, 311 ff. 
distinct from moral concepts and 
impulses, 165-6 
and heredity, 394 
and impulses, 317 
and internal necessity, 394 
and mental adjustment, 317 
and pain, 395 ff. 
pathology of, 368 ff. 
and Reaction-time experiments, 
333 
see also Behavior, pathological 


439 


Voluntary control, evidence of, 313 
movement, thought, not imagery, 
causal factor in, 332 
and conceptual control, 331 ff. 
and kinesthetic imagery, 321 f., 
331, 341 
kinetic units in, 343 
necessity of sensation in, 349 
sensations involved in, 349 ff. 
summary of its causal factors, 342 
of sensations involved in, 367 


Walking, acquisition of, 346 
War neuroses, 203 ff. 
etiology of, 229 
Will, act of, 318 
act of, a voluntary reaction of 
mind, 48 
attributes of, as mental element, 
319 
existence of, 311 ff. 
freedom of, 392 ff. 
necessitated only by what is essen- 
tial to happiness, 395 
never pathologically strong, 373 
tests of, 390 
training of, 387 
suggestions for, 388 
Wundt, criticism of his 
theory of the soul, 409 
tridimensional theory of feeling, 
103 ff. 
criticism of, 105 


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INDEX OF PROPER NAMES 


A 


Ach, Narziss, 315 

Adler, Alfred, 177 f., 247, 253, 279 
ff., 298 

d’Allonnes, R. G., 115, 118 n. 

Anaxagoras, 42 

Angell, James R., 334 ff., 339 f. 

Aristotle, 4 f., 10, 111, 180, 408 

Audibert, A. C. M., 116 n. 


B 
Bain, 312 
Bancroft, 93 
_ Barnes, 176 n. 
Barrett, E. Boyd, 387 ff. 
Bastian, H. Charlton, 349 n. 
Batten, 355 
Bechterew, W. V., 64 ff., 68 f., 118, 
148 
‘Beethoven, Ludwig van, 178 f., 281 
Bell Charles, 116 
Bernard, Claude, 351 n. 
Binet, Alfred, 21, 46, 299 
Birnbaum, Karl, 214, 368 n., 373 
Bjerre, Poul, 251 n. 
Blaauw, 94 
Blanton, Margaret Gray, 343 f. 
Blasius, 92 
Bleuler, 20 f., 266 
Bonatelli, 66 
Brazzola, 355 
Brentano, 6 f. 
Breuer, 253 ff., 271 
Bruckner, 281 
Biihler, Karl, 336 ff. 
Bunsen, 94, 96 
Burke, Caroline F., 171 n. 
Burnett, Charles Theodore, 340 


29 


Cc 


Cesalpinus of Arezzo, 349 n. 
Jalkins, Mary Whiton, 9, 315 
Cannon, Walter B., 126 ff. 
Cason, Hulsey, 69 f. 
Cattaneo, A., 354 f, 

Coffin, Joseph Herschel, 315 
Curschmann, Hans, 359 n. 


D 
Dante, 181 
Dejerine, 251 n. 
Demosthenes, 178, 281 
Descartes, 402 f. 
Downey, June E., 323 ff., 334, 390 f, 
Driesch, H., 16, 405 ff. 
Dubois, Paul, 251 n. 
Duchenne, 116 f, 
Dumas G., 117 


KE 
Ebert, 287 
Kisenlohr, 355 
Erdmann, 337 
Eucken, 337 

F 


Favre, M., 353 n., 355 f., 367 

Fechner, Gustav Theodor, 6 

Fichte, 409 f. 

Forster, 355 

Frank, 39 ff. 

Franz, H., 366 n. 

Freud, Sigmund, 23, 30 ff., 38, 41, 
210, 215 n., 241 f., 245, 251 n., 253 
ff., 264 n., 268 ff., 298, 303 

Frink, 210 


441 


442 


Fritsch, 64 
Frébes, Joseph, 190 n. 
Frost, E. P., 8 n., 66 n. 


G 


Gauckler, 251 n. ~* 

Goldenweiser, A. A., 264 f., 275 £., 
278 

Goldscheider, 357 

Griesinger, 66 

Groos, 145 


H 


Haberlandt, 82, 86 
Hacks Jakob, 399 n. 

Hall, G, Stanley, 170 n., 171 n., 176 n. 
Hamel, Ignatius, 69, 71 
Hamilton, William, 349 n. 
Healy, William, 27, 164 
Henderson, E. N., 214 
Hermann, 92 

Hertz, 399 

Hess, 59 n. 

Hitschmann, 256 

Hitzig, 64 


J 


James, William, 8, 13 f., 44, 108, 
DLT i, 118 |£.;) 321 fF, 125 S38) 
321 f., 324 ff., 330, 341, 362, 363 n., 
401 

Janet, 17, 271 

Jennings, H. §., 85, 89 ff. 

Jung, Carl Gustav, 36, 38, 242 ff., 
251 n., 265 ff., 298, 303 

Jungmann, Joseph, 110 


K 


Kahlbaum, 219 

Kant, Immanuel, 43, 49 f., 107, 389, 
403, 409 

Kiesow, F., 196 n. 

Kirkpatrick, 346 

Kline, 164 


INDEX OF PROPER NAMES 


Koch, 287 

Koelliker, 352 
Kostyleff, V., 66 n., 69 
Kraepelin, E., 213 
Kreidl, 84 

Kroeber, 276 

Kiilpe, Oswald, 336 
Kuhlmann, F., 299 


L 


Lange, Ludwig, 74, 108, 111 ff., 118 f£., 
121 f., 133 

Lashley, K. S., 364 f. 

Lehmann, 107 

Lennander, 357 f. 

Lewinsky, 357 

Lindworsky, J., 46, 312 n. 

Loeb, Jacques, 79, 83 n., 87 f., 90, 
92 ff. 

Lyon, E. P., 85 f. 


M 


MacCurdy, John T., 206, 251 n. 
MacDowell, E. C., 63 
McDonough, Agnes, 339 
McDougall, W., 145 
McGrath, Marie C., 164 n. 
MeNeil, Donald, 385 n., 386 
Marbe, 338 

Marey, 121 

Mast, 93 

Maxwell, 92 

Meier, Norman C., 391 n. 
Melancthon, Philip, 3, 5 
Mendel, Gregor, 282 
Mendelssohn, 91 

Meyer, Adolph, 181, 284 ff. 
Meyer, O. B., 358 n. 
Miller-Hettlingen, J., 92 
Mitchel, 74 

Monakow, 347 n., 348 
Monroe, W. S., 171 n. 
Moore, Kathleen Carter, 144 


INDEX OF PROPER NAMES 


Moore, T. V., 75 n., 76 n., 283 n.,; 
336 n., 338 n., 339 n. 

Moreau, 116 

Morgan, 408 n. 

Mosso, 120 

Mott, 351 

Mozart, 281 

Miihl, Anita, 41 

Miiller, E. G., 366 n. 

Miiller, J., 362 f. 


Myer, 36 

N 
Nagel, 57 n. 
Nemec, 82 

.@) 


Oehrwall, 357 
-Oltmanns, F., 88 n. 
Oppenheim, 119 
Osler, Sir William, 159 
Ostwald, W., 399 ff. 


Lf 


Pawlow, Ivan P., 63, 68 f., 71 f. 
Payot, 387 

Pearson, Karl, 282 

Pelliet, 355 

Pfungst, Oskar, 328 ff. 

Pieron, 77 

Pillsbury, W. B., 358 f. 

Prince, Morton, 25 f. 


R 


Regaud, Cl., 352 n., 353, 355 f., 361, 
367 

Ribot, 312, 372 

Richet, Charles, 66 f. 

Roscoe, 94, 96 

Rose, 327 


443 


S 


Sachs, 353 f. 

Scaliger, Julius Cesar, 349 n. 
Schlesinger, E. G., 70 n., 359, 361 n. 
Sehmidt, Ad., 359 n. 

Schumann, 362 f. 

Schiippel, 349 

Schweizer, 92 

Sétchénoff, 66 

Shakespeare, William, 195 
Sheldon, 170 

Shelly, Percy Bysshe, 221, 283 n. 
Sherrington, 76 f., 124, 351, 353, 355 
Socrates, 42, 395 

Spencer, Herbert, 137 

Spiegel, Otto, 119 

Stérring, 326 f. 

Stratton, G. M., 104 

Striimpell, Adolf, 312, 350, 360 
Stumpf, 103, 108 

Sulzer, John George, 43 


Ab 


Tait, William D., 215 

Taylor, Clifton O., 337 

Terman, L. M., 299 

Thomas Acquinas, Saint, 18 n., 19 n., 
392 ff. 

Thompson, Francis, 221 

Thorndike, E. L., 147, 322 

Titchener, E. B., 46 

Tourette, Gilles de la, 359 n. 

Trettien, 346 


Vv 


van der Hoop, J. H., 251 n. 

van Helmont, 403 

Verworn, E. G., 79 n., 84 n., 91 f., 
182 

Vicari, E. M., 63 

von Frey, M., 357 ff. 

von Hartmann, 17 

von Stauffenberg, 39 


444 INDEX OF PROPER NAMES 


W Woodrow, Herbert, 76 ff., 316 n. 
Watson, John B., 7 f., 70, 138, 343 ff. | Woodworth, Robert Sessions, 331 ff., 
Weber, Ernst, 366 f. 341 ; 
Weissmann, 407 Wundt, Wilhelm, 6, 74 f., 103 ff., 


Wheeler, Raymond H., 312 n., 315 122 f., 312, 320 n., 363 n., 409 ff. 
White, William A., 22, 179, 259 

Winch, 122 

Wittig, K., 387 

Wolff, Christian, 5 Ziehen, T., 312 


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